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diff --git a/old/50169-0.txt b/old/50169-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 0a7d7bb..0000000 --- a/old/50169-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5395 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hermia Suydam, by Gertrude Atherton - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Hermia Suydam - -Author: Gertrude Atherton - -Release Date: October 10, 2015 [EBook #50169] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HERMIA SUYDAM *** - - - - -Produced by Mardi Desjardins & the online Distributed -Proofreaders Canada team (http://www.pgdpcanada.net) from -page images generously made available by The Internet -Archive American Libraries -(https://archive.org/details/americana) - - - - - - HERMIA SUYDAM - - - - GERTRUDE FRANKLIN ATHERTON - AUTHOR OF “WHAT DREAMS MAY COME” - - - - - THE CURRENT LITERATURE PUBLISHING CO - NEW YORK, SAN FRANCISCO, LONDON, AND PARIS - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1889. - - THE CURRENT LITERATURE PUBLISHING CO. - - [_All rights reserved._] - - - - - - Press of J. J. Little & Co. - Astor Place, New York. - - - - - Table of Contents - - CHAPTER I.—A SECOND AVENUE HOUSEHOLD. - CHAPTER II.—JOHN SUYDAM GIVES HIS BLESSING. - CHAPTER III.—BROOKLYN AND BABYLON. - CHAPTER IV.—IN THE GREEN ROOM OF LITERATURE. - CHAPTER V.—THE SWEETS OF SOLITUDE. - CHAPTER VI.—SUYDAM’S LEGACY AND HERMIA’S WILL. - CHAPTER VII.—A HEROINE IN TRAINING. - CHAPTER VIII.—HERMIA DISCOVERS HERSELF. - CHAPTER IX.—HELEN SIMMS. - CHAPTER X.—A MENTAL PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY. - CHAPTER XI.—A TAILOR-MADE FATE. - CHAPTER XII.—THE CLUB OF FREE DISCUSSION. - CHAPTER XIII.—OGDEN CRYDER. - CHAPTER XIV.—IN A METROPOLITAN JUNGLE. - CHAPTER XV.—A CLEVER TRIFLER. - CHAPTER XVI.—A LITERARY DINNER. - CHAPTER XVII.—AN ILLUSION DISPELLED. - CHAPTER XVIII.—A BLOODLESS ENTHUSIAST. - CHAPTER XIX.—TASTELESS FRUIT. - CHAPTER XX.—A COMMONPLACE MEETING. - CHAPTER XXI.—BACK TO THE PAST. - CHAPTER XXII.—QUINTARD IS DISCUSSED. - CHAPTER XXIII.—PLATONIC PROSPECTS. - CHAPTER XXIV.—AN UNEXPECTED CONFESSION. - CHAPTER XXV.—THE POWER OF PERSONALITY. - CHAPTER XXVI.—HERMIA HEARS THE TRUTH. - CHAPTER XXVII.—FIVE POINTS OF VIEW. - CHAPTER XXVIII.—TWO HISTORIES ARE ALMOST FINISHED. - CHAPTER XXIX.—AN EPOCH-MAKING DEPARTURE. - CHAPTER XXX.—THROUGH THE SNOW. - CHAPTER XXXI.—THE DYKMAN REPRIMAND. - CHAPTER XXXII.—FUTURITY. - CHAPTER XXXIII.—CHAOS. - CHAPTER XXXIV.—LIFE FROM DEATH. - CHAPTER XXXV.—IDEALS RESTORED. - CHAPTER XXXVI.—AN AWAKENING. - CHAPTER XXXVII.—THE DOCTRINE OF THE INEVITABLE. - CHAPTER XXXVIII.—BETWEEN DAY AND NIGHT. - CHAPTER XXXIX.—THE REALIZATION OF IDEALS. - - - - - _FROM HERBERT SPENCER’S CHAPTER ON “THE WILL.”_ - -_To say that the performance of the action is the result of his free -will is to say that he determines the cohesion of the psychical states -which arouse the action; and as these psychical states constitute -himself at the moment, this is to say that these psychical states -determine their own cohesion, which is absurd. These cohesions have been -determined by experiences—the greater part of them, constituting what -we call his natural character, by the experiences of antecedent -organisms, and the rest by his own experiences. The changes which at -each moment take place in his consciousness are produced by this -infinitude of previous experiences registered in his nervous structure, -co-operating with the immediate impressions on his senses; the effects -of these combined factors being in every sense qualified by the -psychical state, general or local, of his organism._ - - - - - HERMIA SUYDAM - - - - - CHAPTER I. - - - A SECOND AVENUE HOUSEHOLD. - -When Crosby Suydam died and left exactly enough money to bury himself, -his widow returned to New York, and, taking her two little girls by the -hand, presented herself at the old Suydam mansion on Second Avenue. “You -must either take care of us or see us go to the poor-house,” she said to -her brother-in-law; “I am not strong enough to work, and my relatives -are as poor as myself.” And she sank into one of the library chairs with -that air of indifference and physical weakness which makes a man more -helpless than defiance or curse. Did John Suydam still, in his withered, -yellow frame, carry a shrunken remnant of that pliable organ called the -heart? His brother’s widow did not add this problem to the others of her -vexed existence—she had done with problems forever—but in his little -world the legend was whispered that, many years before, the last -fragment had dried and crumbled to dust. It must be either dust or a -fossil; and, if the latter, it would surely play a merry clack and -rattle with its housing skeleton every time the old man drew a long -breath or hobbled across the room. - -John Suydam’s age was another problem. His neighbors said that the -little yellow old man was their parents’ contemporary. That he had ever -had any youth those parents denied. He was many years older than Crosby -Suydam, however, and the world had blamed him sharply for his treatment -of his younger brother. Crosby had been wealthy when he married, and a -great favorite. Some resentment was felt when he chose a New England -girl for his wife; but Mrs. Suydam entertained so charmingly that -society quickly forgave both, and filled their drawing-rooms whenever -bidden. For ten years these two young people were illuminating stars in -the firmament of New York society; then they swept down the horizon like -meteors on a summer’s night. Crosby had withdrawn his fortune from the -securities in which his father had left it, and blown bubbles up and -down Wall street for a year or so. At the end of that time he possessed -neither bubbles nor suds. He drifted to Brooklyn, and for ten years -more, struggled along, at one clerkship or another, his brother never -lending him a dollar, nor offering him the shelter of his roof. He -dropped out of life as he had dropped out of the world, which had long -since forgotten both him and his unhappy young wife. - -But, if John Suydam had no heart, he had pride. New York, in his -opinion, should have been called Suydam, and the thought of one of his -name in the poor-house aroused a passion stronger than avarice. He told -his sister-in-law that she could stay, that he would give her food and -shelter and a hundred dollars a year on condition that she would take -care of her own rooms—he could not afford another servant. - -It was a strange household. Mrs. Suydam sat up in her room all day with -her two little girls and in her passive, mechanical way, heard their -lessons, or helped them make their clothes. Her brother she met only at -the table. At those awful meals not a word was ever spoken. John, who -had atrocious table manners, crunched his food audibly for a half-hour -at breakfast, an hour and a half at dinner, and an hour at supper. Mrs. -Suydam, whose one desire was to die, accepted the hint he unconsciously -gave, and swallowed her food whole; if longevity and mastication were -correlatives, it was a poor rule that would not work both ways. She died -before the year was out; not of indigestion, however, but of relaxation -from the terrible strain to which her delicate constitution had been -subjected during the ten preceding years. - -John Suydam had her put in the family vault, under St. Mark’s, as -economically as possible, then groaned in spirit as he thought of the -two children left on his hands. He soon discovered that they would give -him no trouble. Bessie Suydam was a motherly child, and adversity had -filled many of the little store-rooms in her brain with a fund of -common-sense, which, in happier conditions, might have been carried by. -She was sixteen and Hermia was nine. The day after the funeral she -slipped into her mother’s place, and her little sister never missed the -maternal care. Their life was monotonous. Bessie did not know her -neighbors, although her grandparents and theirs had played together. -When Mrs. Suydam had come to live under her brother-in-law’s roof, the -neighborhood had put its dislike of John Suydam aside and called at -once. It neither saw Mrs. Suydam, nor did its kindness ever receive the -slightest notice; and, with a sigh of relief, it forgot both her and her -children. - -A few months after Mrs. Suydam’s death another slight change occurred in -the household. A fourth mendicant relative appeared and asked for help. -He was a distant cousin, and had been a schoolmate of John Suydam in -that boyhood in which no one but himself believed. He had spent his life -in the thankless treadmill of the teacher. Several years before, he had -been pushed out of the mill by younger propounders of more fashionable -methods, and after his savings were spent he had no resource but John -Suydam. - -Suydam treated him better than might have been expected. These two -girls, whom a malignant fate had flung upon his protection, must be -educated, and he was unwilling to incur the expenses of a school or -governess. The advent of William Crosby laid the question at rest. John -told him that he would give him a home and a hundred dollars a year if -he would educate his nieces, and the old man was glad to consent. - -The professor taught the girls conscientiously, and threw some sunshine -into their lives. He took them for a long walk every day, and showed -them all the libraries, the picture galleries, and the shops. In spite -of the meanness of her garb, Bessie attracted some attention during -these ramblings; she had the pretty American face, and the freshness of -morning was in it. Poor Hermia, who obediently trotted behind, passed -unnoticed. Nature, who had endowed the rest of her family so kindly—her -father and mother had been two of the old dame’s proudest works—had -passed her by in a fit of abstraction. Under her high, melancholy -forehead and black, heavy brows, stared solemnly a pair of unmistakably -green eyes—even that hypocrite Politeness would never name them gray. -Her dull, uninteresting hair was brushed severely back and braided in a -tight pig-tail; and her sallow cheeks were in painful contrast to the -pink and white of her sister’s delicate skin. Her eyelashes were thick -and black, and she had the small, admirably shaped hands and feet of the -Suydams, but the general effect was unattractive. She was a cold, -reserved child, and few people liked her. - -The professor took the girls to the theater one night, and it was a -memorable night in their lives. Each was in a fever of excitement, and -each manifested it characteristically. Bessie’s cheeks were flushed to -her eyelashes, and she jerked the buttons off both gloves. Her gray eyes -shone and her pink lips were parted. People stared at her as she passed -and wondered who she was. But for once in her life she was blind to -admiration; she was going to see a play! Hermia was paler than ever and -almost rigid. Her lips were firmly compressed, but her hands, in her -little woolen gloves, were burning, and her eyes shone like a cat’s in -the dark. They sat in the gallery, but they were in the front row, and -as content as any jeweled dame in box or parquette. - -The play was Monte Cristo, and what more was needed to perfect the -delight of two girls confronted with stage illusion for the first time? -Bessie laughed and wept, and rent her gloves to shreds with the -vehemence of her applause. Hermia sat on the extreme edge of the seat, -and neither laughed, wept, nor applauded. Her eyes, which never left the -stage, grew bigger and bigger, her face paler, and her nostrils more -tense. - -After the play was over she did not utter a word until she got home; but -the moment she reached the bedroom which the sisters shared in common -she flung herself on the floor and shrieked for an hour. Bessie, who was -much alarmed, dashed water over her, shook her, and finally picked her -up and rocked her to sleep. The next morning Hermia was as calm as -usual, but she developed, soon after, a habit of dreaming over her books -which much perplexed her sister. Bessie dreamed a little too, but she -always heard when she was spoken to, and Hermia did not. - -One night, about three months after the visit to the theater, the girls -were in their room preparing for bed. Hermia was sitting on the -hearth-rug taking off her shoes, and Bessie was brushing her long hair -before the glass and admiring the reflection of her pretty face. - -“Bessie,” said Hermia, leaning back and clasping her hands about her -knee, “what is your ambition in life?” - -Bessie turned and stared down at the child, then blushed rosily. “I -should like to have a nice, handsome husband and five beautiful -children, all dressed in white with blue sashes. And I should like to -have a pretty house on Fifth Avenue, and a carriage, and lots of novels. -And I should like to go to Europe and see all the picture-galleries and -churches.” She had been addressing herself in the glass, but she -suddenly turned and looked down at Hermia. - -“What is your ambition?” she asked. - -“To be the most beautiful woman in the world!” exclaimed the child -passionately. - -Bessie sat down on a hassock. She felt but did not comprehend that -agonized longing for the gift which nature had denied, and which woman -holds most dear. She had always been pretty and was somewhat vain, but -she had known little of the power of beauty, and power and uncomeliness -alone teach a woman beauty’s value. But she was sympathetic, and she -felt a vague pity for her sister. She thought it better, however, to -improve the occasion. - -“Beauty is nothing in itself,” she said, gently; “you must be good and -clever, and then people will think——” - -“Bessie,” interrupted Hermia, as if she had not heard, “do you think I -will _ever_ be pretty?” - -Bessie hesitated. She was very conscientious, but she was also very -tender-hearted. For a moment there was a private battle, then conscience -triumphed. “No,” she said, regretfully, “I am afraid you never will be, -dear.” - -She was looking unusually lovely herself as she spoke. Her shoulders -were bare and her chemise had dropped low on her white bosom. Her eyes -looked black in the lamp’s narrow light, and her soft, heavy hair -tumbled about her flushed face and slender, shapely figure. Hermia gazed -at her for a moment, and then with a suppressed cry sprang forward and -tore her sharp nails across her sister’s cheek. - -Bessie gave a shriek of pain and anger, and, catching the panting, -struggling child, slapped her until her arm ached. “There!” she -exclaimed, finally, shaking her sister until the child’s teeth clacked -together, “you little tiger cat! You sha’n’t have any supper for a -week.” Then she dropped Hermia suddenly and burst into tears. “Oh, it is -dreadfully wicked to lose one’s temper like that; but my poor face!” She -rubbed the tears from her eyes and, standing up, carefully examined her -wounds in the glass. She heaved a sigh of relief; they were not very -deep. She went to the washstand and bathed her face, then returned to -her sister. Hermia stood on the hearth-rug. She had not moved since -Bessie dropped her hands from her shoulders. - -Bessie folded her arms magisterially and looked down upon the culprit, -her delicate brows drawn together, her eyes as severe as those of an -angel whose train has been stepped on. “Are you not sorry?” she demanded -sternly. - -Hermia gazed at her steadily for a moment. “Yes,” she said, finally, “I -am sorry, and I’ll never get outside-mad again as long as I live. I’ve -made a fool of myself.” Then she marched to the other side of the room -and went to bed. - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER II. - - - JOHN SUYDAM GIVES HIS BLESSING. - -One day a bank clerk came up to the quiet house with a message to John -Suydam. As he was leaving he met Bessie in the hall. Each did what wiser -heads had done before—they fell wildly and uncompromisingly in love at -first sight. How Frank Mordaunt managed to find an excuse for speaking -to her he never remembered, nor how he had been transported from the -hall into the dingy old drawing-room. At the end of an hour he was still -there, seated on a sofa of faded brocade, and looking into the softest -eyes in the world. - -After that he came every evening. John Suydam knew nothing of it. -Bessie, from the parlor window, watched Mordaunt come down the street -and opened the front door herself; the old man, crouching over his -library fire, heard not an echo of the whispers on the other side of the -wall. - -Poor Bessie! Frank Mordaunt was the first young man with whom she had -ever exchanged a half-dozen consecutive sentences. No wonder her heart -beat responsively to the first love and the first spoken admiration. -Mordaunt, as it chanced, was not a villain, and the rôle of victim was -not offered to Bessie. She was used to economy, he had a fair salary, -and they decided to be married at once. When they had agreed upon the -date, Bessie summoned up her courage and informed her uncle of her -plans. He made no objection; he was probably delighted to get rid of -her; and as a wedding-gift he presented her with—Hermia. - -“I like her better than I do you,” he said, “for she has more brains in -her little finger than you have in your whole head; and she will never -be contented with a bank clerk. But I cannot be bothered with children. -I will pay you thirty dollars a quarter for her board, and William -Crosby can continue to teach her. I hope you will be happy, Elizabeth; -but marriage is always a failure. You can send Hermia to me every -Christmas morning, and I will give her twenty-five dollars with which to -clothe herself during the year. I shall not go to the wedding. I dislike -weddings and funerals. There should be no periods in life, only commas. -When a man dies he doesn’t mind the period; he can’t see it. But he need -not remind himself of it. You can go.” - -Bessie was married in a pretty white gown, made from an old one of her -mother’s, and St. Mark’s had never held a daintier bride. No one was -present but Mordaunt’s parents, the professor, who was radiant, and -Hermia, who was the only bridesmaid. But it was a fair spring morning, -the birds were singing in an eager choir, and the altar had been -decorated with a few greens and flowers by the professor and Hermia. At -the conclusion of the service the clergyman patted Bessie on the head -and told her he was sure she would be happy, and the girl forgot her -uncle’s benediction. - -“Bessie,” said Hermia an hour later, as they were walking toward their -new home, “I will never be married until I can have a dress covered with -stars like those Hans Andersen’s princesses carried about in a nutshell -when they were disguised as beggar-maids, and until I can be married in -a grand cathedral and have a great organ just pealing about me, and a -white-robed choir singing like seraphs, and roses to walk on——” - -“Hermia,” said Bessie dreamily, “I wish you would not talk so much, and -you shouldn’t wish for things you can never have.” - -“I will have them,” exclaimed the child under her breath. “I will! I -will!” - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER III. - - - BROOKLYN AND BABYLON. - -Thirteen years passed. Bessie had three of her desired children and a -nice little flat in Brooklyn. Reverses and trials had come, but on the -whole Mordaunt was fairly prosperous, and they were happy. The children -did not wear white dresses and blue sashes; they were generally to be -seen in stout ginghams and woolen plaids, but they were chubby, healthy, -pretty things, and their mother was as proud of them as if they had -realized every detail of her youthful and ambitious dreams. - -Bessie’s prettiness had gone with her first baby, as American prettiness -is apt to do, but the sweetness of her nature remained and shone through -her calm eyes and the lines of care about her mouth. She had long since -forgotten to sigh over the loss of her beauty, she had so little time; -but she still remembered to give a deft coil to her hair, and her plain -little gowns were never dowdy. She knew nothing about modern decorative -art, and had no interest in hard-wood floors or dados; but her house was -pretty and tasteful in the old-fashioned way, and in her odd moments she -worked at cross-stitch. - -And Hermia? Poor girl! She had not found the beauty her sister had lost. -Her hair was still the same muddy blonde-brown, although with a latent -suggestion of color, and she still brushed it back with the severity of -her childhood. Nothing, she had long since concluded, could beautify -her, and she would waste no time in the attempt. She was a trifle above -medium height, and her thin figure bent a little from the waist. Her -skin was as sallow as of yore, and her eyes were dull. She had none of -Bessie’s sweetness of expression; her cold, intellectual face just -escaped being sullen. Her health was what might be expected of a girl -who exercised little and preferred thought to sleep. She had kept the -promise made the night she had scratched her sister’s face; during the -past fifteen years no one had seen her lose her self-control for a -moment. She was as cold as a polar night, and as impassive as an -Anglo-American. She was very kind to her sister, and did what she could -to help her. She taught the children; and, though with much private -rebellion, she frequently made their clothes and did the marketing. -Frank and Bessie regarded her with awe and distant admiration, but the -children liked her. The professor had taught her until he could teach -her no more, and then had earned his subsistence by reading aloud to -John Suydam. A year or two before, he had departed for less material -duties, with few regrets. - -But, if Hermia no longer studied, she belonged to several free libraries -and read with unflagging vigor. Of late she had taken a deep interest in -art, and she spent many hours in the picture galleries of New York. -Moreover, she grasped any excuse which took her across the river. With -all the fervor of her silent soul she loved New York and hated Brooklyn. - -She was sitting in the dining-room one evening, helping Lizzie, the -oldest child, with her lessons. Lizzie was sleepy, and was droning -through her multiplication table, when she happened to glance at her -aunt. “You are not paying attention,” she exclaimed, triumphantly; “I -don’t believe you’ve heard a word of that old table, and I’m not going -to say it over again.” - -Hermia, whose eyes had been fixed vacantly on the fire, started and took -the book from Lizzie’s lap. “Go to bed,” she said; “you are tired, and -you know your tables very well.” - -Lizzie, who was guiltily conscious that she had never known her tables -less well, accepted her release with alacrity, kissed her aunt -good-night, and ran out of the room. - -Hermia went to the window and opened it. It looked upon walls and -fences, but lineaments were blotted out to-night under a heavy fall of -snow. Beyond the lower roofs loomed the tall walls of houses on the -neighboring street, momentarily discernible through the wind-parted -storm. - -Hermia pushed the snow from the sill, then closed the window with a -sigh. The snow and the night were the two things in her life that she -loved. They were projected into her little circle from the grand whole -of which they were parts, and were in no way a result of her -environment. - -She went into the sitting-room and sat down by the table. She took up a -book and stared at its unturned pages for a quarter of an hour. Then she -raised her eyes and looked about her. Mordaunt was sitting in an -easy-chair by the fire, smoking a pipe and reading a magazine story -aloud to his wife, who sat near him, sewing. Lizzie had climbed on his -lap, and with her head against his shoulder was fast asleep. - -Hermia took up a pencil and made a calculation on the fly-leaf of her -book. It did not take long, but the result was a respectable sum—4,620. -Allowing for her sister’s brief illnesses and for several minor -interruptions, she had looked upon that same scene, varied in trifling -details, just about 4,620 times in the past thirteen years. She rose -suddenly and closed her book. - -“Good-night,” she said, “I am tired. I am going to bed.” - -Mordaunt muttered “good-night” without raising his eyes; but Bessie -turned her head with an anxious smile. - -“Good-night,” she said; “I think you need a tonic. And would you mind -putting Lizzie to bed? I am so interested in this story. Frank, carry -her into the nursery.” - -Hermia hesitated a moment, as if she were about to refuse, but she -turned and followed Frank into the next room. - -She undressed the inert, protesting child and tucked her in bed. Then -she went to her room and locked the door. She lit the gas mechanically -and stood still for a moment. Then she threw herself on the bed, and -flung herself wildly about. After a time she clasped her hands tightly -about the top of her head and gazed fixedly at the ceiling. Her family -would not have recognized her in that moment. Her disheveled hair clung -about her flushed face, and through its tangle her eyes glittered like -those of a snake. For a few moments her limbs were as rigid as if the -life had gone out of them. Then she threw herself over on her face and -burst into a wild passion of weeping. The hard, inward sobs shook her -slender body as the screw shakes the steamer. - -“How I hate it! How I hate it! How I hate it!” she reiterated, between -her paroxysms. “O God! is there nothing—nothing—nothing in life but -this? Nothing but hideous monotony—and endless days—and thousands and -thousands of hours that are as alike as grains of sand?” - -She got up suddenly and filling a basin with water thrust her head into -it. The water was as cold as melting ice, and when she had dried her -hair she no longer felt as if her brain were trying to force its way -through the top of her skull. - -Hermia, like many other women, lived a double life. On the night when, -under the dramatic illusion of Monte Cristo, her imagination had -awakened with a shock which rent the film of childhood from her brain, -she had found a dream-world of her own. The prosaic never suspected its -existence; the earth’s millions who dwelt in the same world cared -nothing for any kingdom in it but their own; she was sovereign of a vast -domain wrapped in the twilight mystery of dreamland, but peopled with -obedient subjects conceived and molded in her waking brain. She walked -stoically through the monotonous round of her daily life; she took a -grim and bitter pleasure in fulfilling every duty it developed, and she -never neglected the higher duty she owed her intellect; but when night -came, and the key was turned in her door, she sprang from the life she -abhorred into the world of her delight. She would fight sleep off for -hours, for sleep meant temporary death, and the morning a return to -material existence. A ray of light from the street-lamp struggled -through the window, and, fighting with the shadows, filled the ugly, -common little room with glamour and illusion. The walls swept afar and -rolled themselves into marble pillars that towered vaporously in the -gloom. Beyond, rooms of state and rooms of pleasure ceaselessly -multiplied. On the pictured floors lay rugs so deep that the echo of a -lover’s footfall would never go out into eternity. From the enameled -walls sprang a vaulted ceiling painted with forgotten art. Veils of -purple stuffs, gold-wrought, jewel-fringed, so dense that the roar of a -cannon could not have forced its way into the stillness of that room, -masked windows and doors. From beyond those pillars, from the far -perspective of those ever-doubling chambers came the plash of waters, -faint and sweet as the music of the bulbul. The bed, aloft on its dais, -was muffled in lace which might have fringed a mist. Hidden in the -curving leaves of pale-tinted lotus flowers were tiny flames of light, -and in an urn of agate burned perfumed woods. * * * - -For this girl within her unseductive frame had all the instincts of a -beautiful woman, for the touch of whose lips men would dig the grave of -their life’s ambitions. That kiss it was the passionate cry of her heart -to give to lips as warm and imploring as her own. She would thrust -handfuls of violets between her blankets, and imagine herself lying by -the sea in a nest of fragrance. Her body longed for the softness of -cambric and for silk attire; her eye for all the beauty that the hand of -man had ever wrought. - -When wandering among those brain-born shadows of hers, she was -beautiful, of course; and, equally inferable, those dreams had a hero. -This lover’s personality grew with her growth and changed with every -evolution of the mind that had given it birth; but, strangely enough, -the lover himself had retained his proportions and lineaments from the -day of his creation. Is it to be supposed that Hermia was wedded -peacefully to her ideal, and that together they reigned over a vast -dominion of loving and respectful subjects? Not at all. If there was one -word in the civilized vocabulary that Hermia hated it was that word -“marriage.” To her it was correlative with all that was commonplace; -with a prosaic grind that ate and corroded away life and soul and -imagination; with a dreary and infinite monotony. Bessie Mordaunt’s -peaceful married life was hideous to her sister. Year after -year,—neither change nor excitement, neither rapture nor anguish, nor -romance nor poetry, neither ambition nor achievement, nor recognition -nor power! Nothing of mystery, nothing of adventure; neither palpitation -of daring nor quiver of secrecy; nothing but kisses of calm affection, -babies, and tidies! 4,620 evenings of calm, domestic bliss; 4,620 days -of placid, housewifely duties! To Hermia such an existence was a tragedy -more appalling than relentless immortality. Bessie had her circle of -friends, and in each household the tragedy was repeated; unless, mayhap, -the couple were ill-mated, when the tragedy became a comedy, and a -vulgar one at that. - -Hermia’s hatred of marriage sprang not from innate immorality, but from -a strongly romantic nature stimulated to abnormal extreme by the -constant, small-beer wave-beats of a humdrum, uniform, ever-persisting, -abhorred environment. If no marriage-bells rang over her cliffs and -waters and through her castle halls, her life was more ideally perfect -than any life within her ken which drowsed beneath the canopy of law and -church. Regarding the subject from the point of view to which her nature -and conditions had focused her mental vision, love needed the -exhilarating influence of liberty, the stimulation of danger, and the -enchantment of mystery. - -Of men practically she knew little. There were young men in her sister’s -circle, and Mordaunt occasionally brought home his fellow clerks; but -Hermia had never given one of them a thought. They were limited and -commonplace, and her reputation for intellectuality had the effect of -making them appear at their worst upon those occasions when -circumstances compelled them to talk to her. And she had not the beauty -to win forgiveness for her brains. She appreciated this fact and it -embittered her, little as she cared for her brother’s uninteresting -friends, and sent her to the depths of her populous soul. - -The books she read had their influence upon that soul-population. The -American novel had much the same effect upon her as the married life of -her sister and her sister’s friends. She cared for but little of the -literature of France, and the best of it deified love and scorned the -conventions. She reveled in mediæval and ancient history and loved the -English poets, and both poets and history held aloft, on pillars of -fragrant and indestructible wood, her own sad ideality. - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER IV. - - - IN THE GREEN ROOM OF LITERATURE. - -Hermia’s imagination in its turn demanded a safety-valve; she found it -necessary, occasionally, to put her dreams into substance and sequence. -In other words she wrote. Not prose. She had neither the patience nor -the desire. Nor did she write poetry. She believed that no woman, save -perhaps time-enveloped Sappho, ever did, and she had no idea of adding -her pseudonym to the list of failures. When her brain became -overcharged, she dashed off verses, wildly romantic, and with a pen -heated white. There was a wail and an hysterical passion in what she -wrote that took the hearts of a large class of readers by storm, and her -verses found prompt acceptance by the daily and weekly papers. She had -as yet aspired to nothing higher. She was distinctly aware that her -versification was crude and her methods faulty. To get her verses into -the magazines they must be fairly correct and almost proper, and both -attainments demanded an amount of labor distasteful to her impatient -nature. Of late, scarcely a week had passed without the appearance of -several metrical contributions over the signature “Quirus;” and the wail -and the passion were growing more piercing and tumultuous. The readers -were moved, interested, or amused, according to their respective -natures. - -The morning after the little arithmetical problem, Hermia arose early -and sat down at her desk. She drew out a package of MS. and read it over -twice, then determined to have a flirtation with the magazines. These -verses were more skillful from a literary point of view than any of her -previous work, because, for the sake of variety, she had plagiarized -some good work of an English poet. The story was a charming one, -dramatic, somewhat fragmentary, and a trifle less caloric than her other -effusions. She revised it carefully, and mailed it, later in the day, to -one of the leading New York magazines. - -Two weeks passed and no answer came. Then, snatching at anything which -offered its minimum of distraction, she determined to call on the -editor. She had never presented herself to an editor before, fearing his -betrayal of her identity; so well had she managed that not even Bessie -knew she wrote; but she regarded the magazine editor from afar as an -exalted being, and was willing to put her trust in him. She felt shy -about acknowledging herself the apostle of beauty and the priestess of -passion, but ennui conquered diffidence, and one morning she presented -herself at the door of her editor’s den. - -The editor, who was glancing over proofs, raised his eyes as she -entered, and did not look overjoyed to see her. Nevertheless, he -politely asked her to be seated. Poor Hermia by this time was cold with -fright; her knees were shaking. She was used to self-control, however, -and in a moment managed to remark that she had come to inquire about the -fate of her poem. The editor bowed, extracted a MS. from a pigeon-hole -behind him, and handed it to her. - -“I cannot use it,” he said, “but I am greatly obliged to you, -nevertheless. We are always grateful for contributions.” - -He had a pleasant way of looking upon the matter as settled, but an -ounce or two of Hermia’s courage had returned, and she was determined to -get something more out of the interview than a glimpse of an editor. - -“I am sorry,” she said, “but of course I expected it. Would you mind -telling me what is the matter with it?” - -Editors will not take the trouble to write a criticism of a returned -manuscript, but they are more willing to air their views verbally than -people imagine. It gives them an opportunity to lecture and generalize, -and they enjoy doing both. - -“Certainly not,” said the editor in question. “Your principal fault is -that you are too highly emotional. Your verses would be unhealthy -reading for my patrons. This is a family magazine, and has always borne -the reputation of incorruptible morality. It would not do for us to -print matter which a father might not wish his daughter to read. The -American young girl should be the conscientious American editor’s first -consideration.” - -This interview was among the anguished memories of Hermia’s life. After -her return home she thought of so many good things she might have said. -This was one which she uttered in the seclusion of her bed-chamber that -evening: - -(“You are perfectly right,” with imperturbability. “‘Protect the -American young girl lest she protect not herself’ should be the motto -and the mission of the American editor!”) - -When she was at one with the opportunity, she asked: “And my other -faults?” - -“Your other faults?” replied the unconscious victim of lagging wit. -“There is a strain of philosophy in your mind which unfits you for -magazine work. A magazine should be light and not too original. People -pick it up after the work of the day; they want to be amused and -entertained, they do not want to think. Anything new, anything out of -the beaten track, anything which does not suggest old and familiar -favorites, anything which requires a mental effort to grasp, annoys them -and affects the popularity of the magazine. Of course we like -originality and imagination—do not misunderstand me; what we do not -want is the complex, the radically original, or the deep. We have -catered to a large circle of readers for a great many years; we know -exactly what they want, and they know exactly what to expect. When they -see the name of a new writer in our pages they feel sure that whatever -may be the freshness and breeziness of the newcomer, he (or she) will -not call upon them to witness the tunneling of unhewn rock—so to speak. -Do you grasp my meaning?” - -(Hermia at home in her bed-chamber: “I see. Your distinctions are -admirable. You want originality with the sting extracted, soup instead -of blood, an exquisite etching rather than the bold sweep and color of -brush and oils. Your contributors must say an old thing in a new way, or -a new thing in so old a way that the shock will be broken, that the -reader will never know he has harbored a new-born babe. Your little -lecture has been of infinite value to me. I shall ponder over it until I -evolve something worthy of the wary parent and the American Young -Girl.”) - -Hermia in the editor’s den: “Oh, yes; thank you very much. But I am -afraid I shall never do anything you will care for. Good-morning.” - -The next day she sent the manuscript to another magazine, and, before -she could reasonably expect a reply, again invaded the sanctity of -editorial seclusion. The genus editor amused her; she resolved to keep -her courage by the throat and study the arbiters of literary destinies. -It is probable that, if her second editor had not been young and very -gracious, her courage would again have flown off on deriding wings; as -it was, it did not even threaten desertion. - -She found the editor engaged in nothing more depressing than the perusal -of a letter. He smiled most promisingly when she announced herself as -the mysterious “Quirus,” but folded his hands deprecatingly. - -“I am sorry I cannot use that poem,” he said, “but I am afraid it is -impossible. It has decided merit, and, in view of the awful stuff we are -obliged to publish, it would be a welcome addition to our pages. I don’t -mind the strength of the poem or the plot; you have made your meaning -artistically obscure. But there is one word in it which would make it -too strong meat for the readers of this magazine. I refer to the word -‘naked.’ It is quite true that the adjective ‘naked’ is used in -conjunction with the noun ‘skies;’ but the word itself is highly -objectionable. I have been trying to find a way out of the difficulty. I -substituted the word ‘nude,’ but that spoils the meter, you see. Then I -sought the dictionary.” He opened a dictionary that stood on a revolving -stand beside him, and read aloud: “‘Naked—uncovered; unclothed; nude; -bare; open; defenseless; plain; mere.’ None of these will answer the -purpose, you see. They are either too short or too long; and ‘open’ does -not convey the idea. I am really afraid that nothing can be done. -Suppose you try something else and be more careful with your vocabulary. -I trust you catch my idea, because I am really quite interested in your -work. It is like the fresh breeze of spring when it is not”—here he -laughed—“the torrid breath of the simoon. I have read some of your -other verse, you see.” - -“I think I understand you,” said Hermia, leaning forward and gazing -reflectively at him. “Manner is everything. Matter is a creature whose -limbs may be of wood, whose joints may be sapless; so long as he is -covered by a first-class tailor he is a being to strut proudly down to -posterity. Or, for the sake of variety, which has its value, the -creature may change his sex and become a pink-cheeked, flax-haired, -blue-eyed doll. Hang upon her garments cut by an unconventional hand, -looped eccentrically and draped artistically, and the poor little doll -knows not herself from her clothes. Have I gazed understandingly upon -the works of the literary clock?” - -The editor threw back his head and laughed aloud. “You are very clever,” -he exclaimed, “but I am afraid your estimate of us is as correct as it -is flattering. We are a set of cowards, but we should be bankrupt if we -were not.” - -Hermia took the manuscript he had extracted from a drawer, and rose. “At -all events you were charitable to read my verses,” she said, “and more -than good to attempt their re-form.” - -The editor stood up also. “Oh, do not mention it,” he said, “and write -me something else—something equally impassioned but quite -irreproachable. Aside from the defect I mentioned, there were one or two -verses which I should have been obliged to omit.” - -Hermia shrugged her shoulders. She might repeatedly work the lovers up -to the verge of disaster, then, just before the fatal moment, wrench -them apart and substitute asterisks for curses. The school-girls would -palpitate, the old maids thrill, the married women smile, and the men -grin. No harm would be done, maidens and maids would lay it down with a -long-drawn sigh—of relief?—or regret? - -Hermia kept these reflections to herself and departed, thinking her -editor a charming man. - -When she reached the sidewalk she stood irresolute for a moment, then -walked rapidly for many blocks. The Mecca of her pilgrimage was another -publishing-house. She stepped briskly upstairs and asked for the editor -with a confidence born of excitement and encouragement. After a short -delay she was shown into his office, and began the attack without -preliminary. - -“I have brought you some verses,” she said, “which have been declined by -two of your esteemed contemporaries on the ground of -unconventionality—of being too highly seasoned for the gentle palates -to which they cater. I bring them to you because I believe you have more -courage than the majority of your tribe. You wrote two books in which -you broke out wildly once or twice. Now I want you to read this while I -am here. It will take but a few moments.” - -The editor, who had a highly non-committal air, smiled slightly, and -held out his hand for the verses. He read them through, then looked up. - -“I rather like them,” he said. “They have a certain virility, although I -do not mistake the strength of passion for creative force. But they are -pretty tropical, and the versification is crude. I—am -afraid—they—will hardly—do.” - -He looked out of the window, then smiled outright. It rather pleased him -to dare that before which his brethren faltered. He made a number of -marks on the manuscript. - -“That rectifies the crudeness a little,” he said, “and the poem -certainly has intellectuality and merit. You can leave it. I will let -you know in a day or two. Your address is on the copy, I suppose. I -think you may count upon the availability of your verses.” - -Hermia accepted her dismissal and went home much elated. The verses were -printed in the next issue of the magazine, and there was a mild storm on -the literary lake. The course of the magazine, in sending up a stream of -red-hot lava in place of the usual shower-bath of lemonade and -claret-cup, was severely criticised, but there were those who said that -this deliberately audacious editor enjoyed the little cyclone he had -provoked. - -This was the most exciting episode Hermia could recall since Bessie’s -marriage. - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER V. - - - THE SWEETS OF SOLITUDE. - -A few weeks later Frank made an announcement which gave Hermia a genuine -thrill of delight. A fellow bank-clerk was obliged to spend some months -in California, and had offered Mordaunt his house in Jersey for the -summer. Hermia would not consent to go with them, in spite of their -entreaties. As far back as she could remember, way down through the long -perspective of her childhood, she had never been quite alone except at -night, nor could she remember the time when she had not longed for -solitude. And now! To be alone for four months! No more evenings of -domestic bliss, no more piles of stockings to darn, no more dinners to -concoct, no more discussions upon economy, no more daily tasks carefully -planned by Bessie’s methodical mind, no more lessons to teach, no more -_anything_ which had been her daily portion for the last thirteen years. -Bridget would go with the family. She would do her own cooking, and not -eat at all if she did not wish. Her clothes could fall into rags, and -her hands look through every finger of her gloves. She would read and -dream and forget that the material world existed. - -It was a beautiful spring morning when Hermia found herself alone. She -had gone with the family to Jersey, and had remained until they were -settled. Now the world was her own. When she returned to the flat, she -threw her things on the floor, pushed the parlor furniture awry, turned -the framed photographs to the wall, and hid the worsted tidies under the -sofa. - -For two months she was well content. She reveled in her loneliness, in -the voiceless rooms, the deserted table, the aimless hours, the -forgotten past, the will-painted present. She regarded the post-man as -her natural enemy, and gave him orders not to ring her bell. Once a week -she took her letters from the box and devoted a half-hour to -correspondence. She had a hammock swung in one of the rooms, and dreamed -half the night through that she was in the hanging gardens of Semiramis. -The darkness alone was between her and the heavens thick with starry -gods; and below was the heavy perfume of oranges and lotus flowers. -There was music—soft—crashing—wooing her to a scene of bewildering -light and mad carousal. There was rapture of power and ecstasy of love. -She had but to fling aside the curtains—to fly down the corridor— - -It is not to be supposed that Hermia’s imagination was faithful to the -Orient. Her nature had great sensuous breadth and wells of passion which -penetrated far down into the deep, hard substratum of New England rock; -but her dreams were apt to be inspired by what she had read last. She -loved the barbarous, sensuous, Oriental past, but she equally loved the -lore which told of the rugged strength and brutal sincerity of mediæval -days, when man turned his thoughts to love and war and naught besides; -when the strongest won the woman he wanted by murder and force, and the -woman loved him the better for doing it. Hermia would have gloried in -the breathless uncertainty of those days, when death and love went -hand-in-hand, and every kiss was bought with the swing of a battle-axe. -She would have liked to be locked in her tower by her feudal father, and -to have thrown down a rope-ladder to her lover at night. Other periods -of history at times demanded her, and she had a great many famous -lovers: Bolingbroke and Mirabeau, Napoleon and Aaron Burr, Skobeleff and -Cavour, a motley throng who bore a strong racial resemblance to one -another when roasting in the furnace of her super-heated imagination. - -Again, there were times when love played but a small part in her -visions. She was one of the queens of that world to which she had been -born, a world whose mountains were of cold brown stone, and in whose few -and narrow currents drifted stately maidens in stiff, white collars and -tailor-made gowns. She should be one of that select band. It was her -birthright; and each instinct of power and fastidiousness, caste and -exclusiveness, flourished as greenly within her as if those currents had -swept their roots during every year of her life’s twenty-four. When -ambition sank down, gasping for breath, love would come forward eager -and warm, a halo enveloped the brown-stone front, and through the -plate-glass and silken curtains shone the sun of paradise. - -For a few weeks the charm of solitude retained its edge. Then, -gradually, the restlessness of Hermia’s nature awoke after its sleep and -clamored for recognition. She grew to hate the monotony of her own -society as she had that of her little circle. She came to dread the -silence of the house; it seemed to close down upon her, oppressing, -stifling, until she would put her hand to her throat and gasp for -breath. Sometimes she would scream at every noise; her nerves became so -unstrung that sleep was a visitor who rarely remembered her. Once, -thinking she needed change of scene, she went to Jersey. She returned -the next morning. The interruption of the habit of years, the absolute -change of the past few months made it impossible to take up again the -strings of her old life. They had snapped forever, and the tension had -been too tight to permit a knot. She could go down to the river, but not -back to the existence of the past thirteen years. - -For a week after her return from Jersey she felt as if she were going -mad. Life seemed to have stopped; the future was a blank sheet. Try to -write on it as she would, the characters took neither form nor color. To -go and live alone would mean no more than the change from her sister’s -flat to a bare-walled room; to remain in her present conditions was -unthinkable. She had neither the money nor the beauty to accumulate -interests in life. Books ceased to interest her, imagination failed her. -She tried to write, but passion was dead, and the blood throbbed in her -head and drowned words and ideas. She had come to the edge of life, and -at her feet swept the river—in its depths were peace and -oblivion—eternal rest—a long, cool night—the things which crawl in -the deep would suck the blood from her head—a claw with muscles of -steel would wrench the brain from her skull and carry it far, far, where -she could feel it throb and jump and ache no more— - -And then, one day, John Suydam died and left her a million dollars. - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER VI. - - - SUYDAM’S LEGACY AND HERMIA’S WILL. - -Hermia attended her uncle’s funeral because Frank came over and insisted -upon it; and she and her brother-in-law were the only mourners. But few -people were in the church, a circumstance which Hermia remembered later -with gratitude. The Suydams had lived on Second Avenue since Second -Avenue had boasted a brick or brownstone front, but no one cared to -assume a respect he did not feel. Among the tablets which graced the -interior of St. Mark’s was one erected to the dead man’s father, who had -left many shekels to the diocese; but John Suydam was lowered into the -family vault with nothing to perpetuate his memory but his name and the -dates of his birth and death engraved on the silver plate of his coffin. - -Hermia took no interest in her uncle’s death; she was even past the -regret that she would be the poorer by twenty-five dollars a year. When -she received the letter from Suydam’s lawyer, informing her that she was -heiress to a million dollars, her hands shook for an hour. - -At first she was too excited to think connectedly. She went out and took -a long walk, and physical fatigue conquered her nerves. She returned -home and sat down on the edge of her bed and thought it all out. The -world was under her feet at last. With such a fortune she could -materialize every dream of her life. She would claim her place in -society here, then go abroad, and in the old world forget the Nineteenth -Century. She would have a house, each of whose rooms should be the -embodiment of one of that strange medley of castles she had built in the -land of her dreams. And men would love her—she was free to love in fact -instead of in fancy—free to go forth and in the crowded drawing-rooms -of that world not a bird’s flight away find the lover whose glance would -be recognition. - -She sprang to her feet and threw her arms above her head. New life -seemed to have been poured into her veins, and it coursed through them -like quicksilver; she felt _young_ for the first time in the twenty-four -centuries of her life. She dropped her arms and closed her hand slowly; -the world was in the palm. She smiled and let her head drop back. She -moved it slowly on the pivot of her throat. Her eyes met the glass. - -The cry of horror which burst from her lips rang through the room. For -this girl had lived so long and so consistently in her imagination that -it was rarely she remembered she was not a beautiful woman. During the -past hours she had slowly grasped the fact that, as with the stroke of a -magician’s wand, her dream-estates had been hardened from shadow into -substance; it had not occurred to her that the gift most coveted was the -one gift withheld. - -She sank in a heap on the bed, all spirit and hope gone out of her. For -many minutes she remained motionless. Then she slowly straightened -herself until she was erect once more, and in her face grew a look of -hope fighting down doubt. In a moment hope triumphed, then gave way to -determination, which in turn yielded to defiance. She sprang forward and -with her clenched hand shattered her mirror into a star with a thousand -points. - -“I _will_ be beautiful!” she cried aloud, “and I will never look into a -glass again until I am.” - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER VII. - - - A HEROINE IN TRAINING. - -The thirty or forty thousand dollars over John Suydam’s million had been -left to Bessie. She immediately bought a charming house on St. Mark’s -Avenue—it did not occur to her to leave her beloved Brooklyn—and -Hermia furnished it for her and told her that she would educate the -children. Hermia did not divide her fortune with her sister. She kept -her hundred thousands, not because gold had made her niggardly, but -because she wanted the power that a fortune gives. - -The old Suydam house was one of the largest of its kind in New York. -Exteriorly it was of red brick with brown-stone trimmings, and about the -lower window was a heavy iron balcony. Beneath the window was a square -of lawn the size of a small kitchen table, which was carefully protected -by a high, spiked iron railing. - -Hermia put the house at once in the hands of a famous designer and -decorator, but allowed him no license. Her orders were to be followed to -the letter. The large, single drawing-room was to be Babylonian. The -library just behind, and the dining-room in the extension were to look -like the rooms of a feudal castle. The large hall should suggest a -cathedral. Above, her boudoir and bed-room was to be a scene from the -Arabian Nights. A conservatory, to be built at the back of the house, -would be a jungle of India. - -The house was to be as nearly finished as possible by the beginning of -winter. She wrote to her mother’s sister, Miss Huldah Starbruck, a lady -who had passed fifty peaceful years in Nantucket, and asked her to come -and live with her. Miss Starbruck promised to come early in December, -and then, all other points settled, Hermia gave her attention to the -momentous question of her undeveloped beauty. - -She went to a fashionable physician and had a long interview with him. -The next day he sent her a trained and athletic nurse, a pleasant, -placid-looking young woman, named Mary Newton. Miss Newton, who had -received orders to put Hermia into a perfect state of health, and who -was given carte blanche, telegraphed for a cottage on the south shore of -Long Island. She had a room fitted up as a gymnasium, and for the next -four months Hermia obeyed her lightest mandate upon all questions of -diet and exercise. Once a week Hermia went to town and divided the day -between the house-decorators and a hairdresser who had engaged to -develop the color in her lusterless locks. - -On the first of December, Miss Newton told her that no girl had ever -been in more superb condition; and Hermia, who had kept her vow and not -yet looked in a mirror, was content to take her word, and both returned -to town. - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER VIII. - - - HERMIA DISCOVERS HERSELF. - -Had Hermia been a bride on her wedding-night she could not have felt -more trepidation than when she stood on the threshold of her first -interview with her new self. She was to meet a strange, potent being, -who would unlock for her those doors against which, with fierce, futile -longing, she had been wont to cast herself, since woman’s instinct had -burst its germ. - -She entered her bedroom and locked the door. But she did not go to the -mirror at once; she was loath to relinquish pleasurable uncertainty. She -sank on a rug before the hearth and locked her hands about her knee in -the attitude which had been a habit from childhood. For a few moments -she sat enjoying the beauty of the room, the successful embodiment of -one of her dearest dreams. The inlaid floor was thick with rugs that had -been woven in the looms of the Orient. The walls were hung with cloth of -gold, and the ceiling was a splendid picture of Nautch girls dancing in -the pleasure palace of an Indian prince. The bed, enameled to represent -ivory, stood on a dais over which trailed a wonderful Hindoo shawl. Over -the couches and divans were flung rich stuffs, feathered rugs, and odd -strips of Indian conceits. The sleeping-room was separated from the -boudoir by a row of pillars, and from the unseen apartment came the -smell of burning incense. - -Hermia leaned back against a pile of cushions, and, clasping her hands -behind her head, gazed about her with half-closed eyes. There was a -sense of familiarity about it all that cast a shadow over her content. -It was a remarkably close reproduction of an ideal, considering that the -ideal had been filtered through the practical brain of a nineteenth -century decorator—but therein lay the sting. She had dreamed of this -room, lived in it; it was as familiar as Bessie’s parlor in Brooklyn, -with its tidies and what-nots; it wanted the charm of novelty. She had a -protesting sense of being defrauded; it was all very well to realize -one’s imaginings, but how much sweeter if some foreign hand had -cunningly woven details within and glamour above, of which she had never -dreamed. The supreme delight of atmospheric architecture is the vague, -abiding sense that high on the pinnacle we have reared, and which has -shot above vision’s range, is a luminous apex, divine in color, wondrous -in form, a will-o’-the-wisp fluttering in the clouds of imagination. - -Hermia sighed, but shrugged her shoulders. Had not life taught her -philosophy? - -Where the gold-stuffs parted on the wall opposite the pillars, a mirror, -ivory-framed, reached from floor to ceiling. Hermia rose and walked a -few steps toward the glass without daring to raise her eyes. Then with a -little cry she ran to the lamps and turned them out. She flung off her -clothes, threw the lace thing she called her night-gown over her head, -and jumped into bed. She pulled the covers over her face, and for ten -minutes lay and reviled herself. Then, with an impatient and audible -exclamation at her cowardice, she got up and lit every lamp in the room. - -She walked over to the mirror and looked long at herself, fearfully at -first, then gravely, at last smilingly. She was beautiful, because she -was unique. Her victory was the more assured because her beauty would be -the subject of many a dispute. She had not the delicate features and -conventional coloring that women admire, but a certain stormy, reckless -originality which would appeal swiftly and directly to variety-loving -man. Her eyes, clear and brilliant as they had once been dull and cold, -were deep and green as the sea. Her hair, which lay in a wiry cloud -about her head and swept her brows, was a shining mass of brazen -threads. Her complexion had acquired the clear tint of ivory and was -stained with the rich hue of health. The very expression of her face had -changed; the hard, dogged, indifferent look had fled. With hope and -health and wishes gratified had come the lifting and banishment of the -old mask—that crystallization of her spirit’s discontent. Yes, she was -a beautiful woman. She might not have a correct profile or a soft -roundness of face, but she was a beautiful woman. - -She pinched her cheek; it was firm and elastic. She put her hands about -her throat; it rose from its lace nest, round and polished as an ivory -pillar. She slipped the night-gown from her shoulders; the line of the -back of her head and neck was beautiful to see, and a crisp, waved -strand of shorter hair that had fallen from its place looked like a -piece of gold filigree on an Indian vase. Her shoulders did not slope, -but they might have been covered with thickest satin. She raised one arm -and curved it slowly, then let it hang straight at her side. She must -always have had a well-shaped arm, for it tapered from shoulder to -wrist; but health and care alone could give the transparent brilliancy -and flawless surface. - -Hermia gazed long at herself. She swayed her beautiful body until it -looked like a reed in an Indian swamp, blown by a midnight breeze. It -was as lithe and limber as young bamboo. She drew the pins from her -hair. It fell about her like a million infinitesimal tongues of living -flame, and through them her green eyes shone and her white skin gleamed. - -Tossing her hair back she sprang forward and kissed her reflection in -the glass, a long, greeting, grateful kiss, and her eyes blazed with -passionate rapture. Then she slowly raised her arms above her head, -every pulse throbbing with delicious exultation, every nerve leaping -with triumph and hope, every artery a river of tumultuous, victorious, -springing life. - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER IX. - - - HELEN SIMMS. - -A year later Hermia was sitting by her library fire one afternoon when -the butler threw back the tapestry that hung over the door and announced -Helen Simms. Hermia rose to greet her visitor with an exclamation of -pleasure that had in it an accent of relief. She had adopted Helen Simms -as the friend of her new self; as yet, but one knew the old Hermia. -Helen was so essentially modern and practical that restless longings and -romantic imaginings fled at her approach. - -Miss Simms, as she entered the room, her cheeks flushed by the wind, and -a snow-flake on her turban, was a charming specimen of her kind. She had -a tall, trim, slender figure, clad in sleek cloth, and carried with -soldierly uprightness. Her small head was loftily and unaffectedly -poised, her brown hair was drawn up under her quiet little hat with -smoothness and precision, and a light, severe fluff adorned her -forehead. She had no beauty, but she had the clean, clear, smooth, -red-and-ivory complexion of the New York girl, and her teeth were -perfect. She looked like a thoroughbred, splendidly-groomed young -greyhound, and was a glowing sample of the virtues of exercise, -luxurious living, and the refinement of two or three generations. - -“What do you mean by moping here all by yourself?” she exclaimed, with a -swift smile which gave a momentary flash of teeth. “You were to have met -me at Madame Lefarge’s, to have tried on your new gown. I waited for you -a half-hour, and in a beastly cold room at that.” - -“I beg your pardon,” replied Hermia, with sudden contrition, “but I -forgot all about it—I may as well tell the bald truth. But I am glad to -see you. I am blue.” - -Helen took an upright chair opposite Hermia’s, and lightly leaned upon -her umbrella as if it were a staff. “I should think you would be blue in -this ‘gray ancestral room,’” she said. “It looks as if unnumbered state -conspiracies and intrigues against unhappy Duncans had been concocted in -it. I do not deny that it is all very charming, but I never come into it -without a shiver and a side-glance at the dark corners.” - -She looked about her with a smile which had little fear in it. - -“These stern gray walls and that vaulted ceiling carry you out of Second -Avenue, I admit; and those stained-glass windows and all that tapestry -and antique furniture waft me back to the days of my struggles with -somebody or other’s history of England. But, _Hermia mia_, I think it -would be good for you to have a modern drawing-room in your house, and -to sit in it occasionally. It is this semblance of past romance which -makes you discontented with the world as you find it.” - -Hermia gave a sigh. “I know,” she said, “but I can’t help it. I am tired -of everything. I dread the thought of another winter exactly like last. -The same men, same receptions, same compliments, same everything.” - -“My dear, you are blasé. I have been expecting it. It follows on the -heels of the first season, as delicate eyes follow scarlet fever. The -eyes get well, and so will you. Five years from now you will not be as -blasé as you are this moment. Look at me. I have been out four years. I -was blasé three years ago, but to-day I could not live without society -and its thousand little excitements. See what you have to look forward -to!” - -Hermia smiled. “You certainly are a shining example of patience and -fortitude, but I fear you have something in you which I lack. I shall -grow more and more bored and discontented. Three years of this would -kill me. I wish I could go to Europe, but Aunt Frances cannot go yet, -and I don’t care to go alone the first time, for I want to see the -society of the different capitals. After that I shall go to Europe by -myself. But in the mean time what am I to do?” - -“Have a desperate flirtation; I mean, of course, a prolonged one. Heaven -knows you are the most fearful flirt in New York—while it lasts. Only -it never lasts more than a week and a day.” - -“I am not a flirt,” said Hermia. “I have not the first essential of a -flirt—patience. I have been simply trying with all my might to fall in -love. And I cannot have a prolonged flirtation with a man who -disappoints me.” - -“My dear, as a veteran, let me advise you. So long as you keep up this -hunt for the ideal you will be bored by everything and everybody in -actual life. All this sentiment and romance and imagination of yours are -very charming, and when I recall the occasions wherein you have kept me -awake until two in the morning, I forgive you, because I found you quite -as entertaining as a novel. But it is only spoiling you for the real -pleasures of life. You must be more philosophical. If you can’t find -your ideal, make up your mind to be satisfied with the best you can get. -There are dozens of charming men in New York, and you meet them every -week. They may not be romantic, they may look better in evening clothes -than in a tin hat and leather legs, but they are quite too fascinating -for all that. Just put your imagination to some practical use, and fancy -yourself in love with one of them for a month. After that it will be -quite easy.” - -“I can’t!” exclaimed Hermia emphatically, as she turned to pour out the -tea the butler had brought in. “I get everything they know out of them -in three interviews, and then we’ve nothing left to talk about.” - -Helen removed her glove from her white hand with its flashing rings, -and, changing her seat to one nearer the table, took up a thin slice of -bread-and-butter. “Is it five o’clock already?” she said, “I must run. I -have a dinner to-night, the opera, and two balls.” She nibbled her bread -and sipped her tea as if the resolution to run had satisfied her -conscience. “Shall I have the pleasure of seeing you have twice as many -partners as myself?” - -“No; I am not going out to-night. You know I draw the line at three -times a week, and I have already touched the limit.” - -“Quite right. You will be beautiful as long as you live. Between Miss -Newton, three nights’ sleep a week, and a large waist, you will be -quoted to your grandchildren as a nineteenth-century Ninon de l’Enclos. -But, to return to the truffles we were discussing before the tea came -in—another trouble is that you are too appallingly clever for the -‘infants.’ Why do you not go into the literary set and find an author? -All I have ever known are fearful bores, but they might suit you.” She -put down her tea-cup. “I have it!” she exclaimed; “Ogden Cryder has just -come back from Europe, and I am positive that he is the man you have -been waiting for. You must meet him. I met him two or three years ago, -and really, for a literary man, he was quite charming. Awfully -good-looking, too.” - -“He is one of the dialect fiends, is he not?” asked Hermia, languidly. -“It is rather awkward meeting an author whose books you haven’t read, -and I simply cannot read dialect.” - -“Oh! get one or two and skim them. The thread of the story is all you -want; then you can discuss the heroine with him, and insist that she -ought to have done the thing he did not make her do. That will flatter -him and give you a subject to start off with. An author scares me to -death, and, upon the rare occasions when I meet one, I always fly at him -with some reproach about the cruel way in which he treated the heroine, -or ask him breathlessly to _please_ tell me whether she and the hero are -ever going to get out of their difficulties or are to remain _planté là_ -for the rest of their lives. This works off the embarrassment, you see, -and after that we talk about Mrs. Blank’s best young man.” - -Hermia smiled. It was difficult to imagine Miss Simms frightened, -breathless, or embarrassed. She looked as if emotion had not stirred her -since the days when she had shrieked in baby wrath because she could not -get her chubby toes into her toothless mouth. - -“Ogden Cryder might at least have something to talk about,” Hermia -answered. “Perhaps it would be worth while.” - -“It would, my dear. I am convinced that he is the man, and I know where -you can meet him. Papa has tickets for the next meeting of the Club of -Free Discussion, and I will tell him to take you. He knows Mr. Cryder, -and shall have strict orders to introduce you. What is more, you will -have the pleasure of hearing the lion roar for an hour before you meet -him. He is to give the lecture of the evening.” - -“Well,” said Hermia, “I shall be glad to go, if your father will be good -enough to take me. Which of Cryder’s books shall I read up?” - -“‘Cornfield Yarns’ and ‘How Uncle Zebediah sowed dat Cotton Field’ are -the ones everybody talks about most. Some of the yarns are quite sweet, -and the papers say—I always read the criticisms, they give the outline -of the plot, and it saves an awful lot of trouble—that Uncle Zebediah -is the most superb African of modern fiction. Uncle Tom has hidden his -diminished head. ‘Unc. Zeb.,’ as he is familiarly called, rolls forth an -amount of dialect to the square inch which none but a Cryder could -manipulate. It is awful work pulling through it, but we all have to work -for success in this life.” - -She drew on her long, loose, tan-colored glove, pushed her bangles over -it, then carefully tucked the top under her cuff. “Well, _addio, Hermia -mia_,” she said, rising; “I will send you a note to-morrow morning and -let you know if anything can possibly happen to prevent papa going on -Wednesday evening. In the mean time, make up your mind to be vanquished -by Ogden Cryder. He really is enchanting.” - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER X. - - - A MENTAL PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY. - -After Helen left, Hermia went up to her room. There she did what she -never failed to do the moment she entered her bedroom—walked over to -the glass and looked at herself. She had not even yet got used to the -idea of her beauty, and sometimes approached the mirror with dread lest -her new self should prove a dream. She saw nothing to alarm her. A -year’s dissipation had not impaired her looks. Excitement and good -living agreed with her, and Miss Newton tyrannized over her like the -hygienic duenna that she was. - -She sank down on the floor before the long glass, resting her elbow on a -cushion. Her crouching attitude reminded her of the women whose lines -had fallen in days of barbaric splendor. It is not to be supposed for a -moment that this effect was accidental. Hermia had determined, before -she burst upon New York, that her peculiar individuality should be the -suggestion of the untrammeled barbarian held in straining leash by the -requirements of civilization. Her green eyes and tawny hair were the -first requisites, and she managed her pliant body with a lithe grace -which completed the semblance. - -She wore to-day a tea-gown of Louis XIV. brocade and lace, and she -watched herself with an amused smile. A year and a half ago her wardrobe -had consisted of coarse serges and gingham aprons. - -She put her head on the cushion, nestled her body into the feather rug, -and in a vague, indolent way let her memory rove through the little -photograph gallery in her brain set apart for the accumulations of the -past twelve months. There were a great many photographs in that gallery, -and their shapes and dimensions were as diverse as their subjects. Some -were so large that they swept from floor to ceiling, although their -surface might reflect but one impression; others were too small to catch -the eye of the casual observer, and the imprint on them was like one -touch of a water-colorist’s brush. Many pasteboards of medium size were -there whose surfaces were crowded like an ant-hill at sundown; and -pushed into corners or lying under a dust-heap were negatives, -undeveloped and fading. At one end of the gallery was a great square -plate, and on it there was no impression of any sort, nor ever had been. - -Hermia pushed up her loose sleeve and pressed her face into the warm -bend of her arm. On the whole, the past year had been almost -satisfactory. A clever brain, an iron will, and a million dollars can do -much, and that much Hermia’s combined gifts had accomplished. - -She opened the windows of her photograph gallery and dusted out the -cobwebs, then, beginning at the top, sauntered slowly down. She looked -at her first appearance in the world of fashion. It is after the -completion of her winter’s wardrobe by a bevy of famous tailors, and she -wears a gown of light-gray cloth and a tiny bonnet of silvery birds. The -début is in St. Mark’s; and as she walks up the center aisle to the -Suydam pew, her form as straight as a young sapling, her head haughtily -yet nonchalantly poised, every curve of her glove-fitting gown -proclaiming the hand that cut it, Second Avenue catches its breath, -raises its eyebrows, and exchanges glances of well-bred, aristocratic -surprise. Late that week it calls, and this time is not repulsed, but -goes away enchanted. It does not take long for the unseen town crier to -flit from Second Avenue to Fifth, and one day his budget of news sends a -ripple over the central stream. John Suydam’s heiress, a beautiful girl -of twenty, with a style all her own, yet not violating a law of good -form! The old red-brick house transformed into an enchanted palace, with -a remarkably wide-awake princess, and a sacrifice to modern proprieties -in the shape of a New England aunt! How unusual and romantic! yet all as -it should be. We begin to remember poor Crosby Suydam and his charming -young wife. We recall the magnificence of their entertainments in the -house on lower Fifth Avenue—now resplendent with a milliner’s sign. -Both dead? How sad! And to think that John Suydam had a million all the -time! The old wretch! But how enchanting that he had the decency to -leave it to this beautiful girl! We will call. - -They do call; and a distant relative of Hermia’s father, Mrs. Cotton -Dykman, comes forward with stately tread and gracious welcome and offers -her services as social sponsor. Hermia accepts the offer with gratitude, -and places her brougham at Mrs. Dykman’s disposal. - -Mrs. Dykman is a widow approaching fifty, with lagging steps yet haughty -mien. Her husband omitted to leave her more than a competence; but she -lives in Washington Square in a house which was her husband’s -grandfather’s, and holds her head so high and wears so much old lace and -so many family diamonds (which she hid in the wall during the late -Cotton’s lifetime) that the Four Hundred have long since got into the -habit of forgetting her bank account. To her alone does Hermia confide -the secret of her past external self and the methods of reconstruction, -and Mrs. Dykman respects her ever after. - -In a photograph near the head of the gallery Hermia and Mrs. Dykman are -seated by the library fire, and Hermia is discoursing upon a question -which has given her a good deal of thought. - -“I want to be a New York society woman to my finger-tips,” she exclaims, -sitting forward in her chair; “that is, I want to be _au fait_ in every -particular. I would not for the world be looked upon as an alien; but at -the same time I want to be a distinctive figure in it. I want to be -aggressively _myself_. The New York girl is of so marked a type, Aunt -Frances, that you would know one if you met her in a Greek bandit’s -cave. She is unlike anything else on the face of the earth. You cross -the river to Brooklyn, you travel an hour and a half to Philadelphia, -you do not see a woman who faintly resembles her unless she has been -imported direct. The New York girl was never included in the scheme of -creation. When the combined forces of a new civilization and the -seven-leagued stride of democracy made her a necessity, Nature fashioned -a mold differing in shape and tint from all others in her storehouse, -and cast her in it. It is locked up in a chest and kept for her -exclusive use. The mold is made of ivory, and the shape is long and -straight and exceeding slim. There is a slight roundness about the bust, -and a general neatness and trimness which are independent of attire. And -each looks carefully fed and thoroughly groomed. Each has brightness in -her eye and elasticity in her step. And through the cheek of each the -blood flows in exactly the same red current about a little white island. -Now all this is very charming, but then she lacks—just a -little—individuality. And I _must_ have my distinctive personality. -There seems nothing left but to be eccentric. Tell me what line to -take.” - -Mrs. Dykman, who has been listening with a slight frown on her brow and -a smile on her lips, replies in her low, measured accents, which a -cataclysm could not accelerate nor sharpen: “My dear, before I answer -your amusing tirade, let me once more endeavor to impress you with the -importance of repose. You may be as beautiful and as original as your -brains and will can make you, but without repose of manner you will be -like an unfinished impressionist daub. Few American women have it unless -they have lived in England; but I want you to take coals to Newcastle -when you make your début in London society. - -“In regard to the other question,” she continues, “experience and -observation and thirty years of that treadmill we call society have -taught me a good many things. One of these things is that eccentricity -is the tacit acknowledgment of lack of individuality. A person with -native originality does not feel the necessity of forcing it down -people’s throats. The world finds it out soon enough, and likes it in -spite of its own even pace and sharply defined creeds. That is, always -provided the originality wears a certain conventional garb: if you would -conquer the world, you must blind and humor it by donning its own -portable envelope. Do you understand what I mean, my dear? You must not -startle people by doing eccentric things; you must not get the -reputation of being a _poseuse_—it is vulgar and tiresome. You must -simply be quietly different from everybody else. There is a fine but -decided line, my dear girl, between eccentricity and individuality, and -you must keep your lorgnette upon it. Otherwise, people will laugh at -you, just as they will be afraid of you if they discover that you are -clever. By the way, you must not forget that last point. The average -American woman is shallow, with an appearance of cleverness. You must be -clever, with an appearance of shallowness. To the ordinary observer the -effect is precisely the same.” - -She rises to her feet and adjusts her bonnet. “It is growing late and I -must go. Think over what I have said. You have individuality enough; you -need not fear that people will fail to find it out; and you assuredly do -not look like any one else in New York.” - -Hermia stands up and gives Mrs. Dykman’s tournure a little twist. “You -are a jewel, Aunt Frances. What should I do without you?” - -Whereupon Mrs. Dykman looks pleased and goes home in Hermia’s brougham. - -Hermia is fairly launched in society about the first of January, and -goes “everywhere” until the end of the season. It gets to be somewhat -monotonous toward the end, but, on the whole, she rather likes it. She -is what is called a success; that is to say, she becomes a professional -beauty, and is much written about in the society papers. She receives a -great many flowers, constant and assiduous attention at balls, and her -dancing is much admired. She gets plenty of compliments, and is much -stared upon at the opera and when driving in the park. Her reception -days and evenings are always crowded, and her entertainments—supervised -by Mrs. Dykman and a valuable young man named Richard Winston—are -pronounced without flaw, and receive special mention in the dailies. - -And yet—Hermia rubbed her fingers thoughtfully up and down several of -the pictures as if to make their figures clearer—in her heart she did -not deem herself an unqualified success. Men ran after her—but because -she was the fashion, not because they loved her. - -During that first winter and the ensuing season at Newport, she had a -great many proposals, but with two or three exceptions she believed them -to have been more or less interested. She did not seem to “take” with -men. This had angered her somewhat; she had expected to conquer the -world, and she did not like obstacles. - -She had an odd and voluptuous beauty, she had brain and all the -advantages of unique and charming surroundings, and she flattered men -when she remembered that it was the thing to do. Was it because the men -felt rather than knew that they did not understand her? Or was it -because she did not understand them? She was keenly aware of her lack of -experience, and that her knowledge of men was chiefly derived from -books. And wherein she was right and wherein wrong she could not tell. - -She shrugged her shoulders. “I suppose experience will come with time,” -she thought, “and I certainly have not much to wish for—if—only—” - -She clasped her hands behind her head and turned her mental eyeglass -upon the unused plate at the head of the gallery. - -When the news of her good fortune had come, her heart’s first leap had -been toward the lover who awaited her in the world thrown at her feet. -That lover, that hero of her dream-world, she had not found. -Occasionally she had detected a minor characteristic in some man, and by -it been momentarily attracted. In no case had the characteristic been -supplemented by others; and after a long and eager search she had -resigned herself to the painful probability that ideals belonged to the -realm of the immaterial. - -But, if she had sighed farewell to the faithful and much-enduring hero -of her years of adversity, she had by no means relinquished the idea of -loving. Few women had ever tried more determinedly and more persistently -to love, and few had met with less success. She had imagined that in a -world of men a woman’s only problem must be whom to choose. It had not -taken her a year to discover that it is easier to scratch the earth from -its molten heart than to love. - -She sprang to her feet and walked up and down the room with swift, -impatient steps. Was she never to be happy? never to know the delights -of love, the warmth of a man’s caress, the sudden, tumultuous bursting -from their underground fastness of the mighty forces within her? Was she -to go through life without living her romance, without knowing the -sweet, keen joy of hidden love? Would she end by marrying a club-room -epigram flavored with absinthe, and settle down to a light or lurid -variation on Bessie’s simple little theme? She laughed aloud. Perhaps it -need not be stated that a year of fashionable life had increased her -contempt for matrimony. - -Was Ogden Cryder the man? An author, yet a man of the world; a man of -intellect, yet with fascination and experience of women. It sounded -like! It sounded like! Oh! if he were! He might have flaws. He might be -the polaric opposite of her ideal. Let him! If he had brain and passion, -skill and sympathy, she would love him with every fiber of her being, -and thank him on her knees for compelling her so to do. - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XI. - - - A TAILOR-MADE FATE. - -Helen Simms was a young woman who had cantered gracefully under the -flick of society’s whip since the night of her début. Occasionally she -broke into a trot, and anon into a run. The speedier locomotion took -place on unworn by-paths; when on the broad highway she was a most -sedate representative of her riding-school. At times she had been -known—to a select few—to kick; and the kick had invariably occurred at -the crossing of the highway and the by-path, and just before she had -made up her mind to forsake the road for the hedges. - -She had all the virtues of her kind. On Sunday mornings she attended St. -Thomas’s, and after service was over walked home with her favorite -youth, whom she patronizingly spoke of as her “infant.” In the afternoon -she entertained another “infant” or read a French novel. Nor was her -life entirely given over to frivolity. She belonged to the sewing-class -of her church, and like its other members fulfilled her mission as a -quotable example, if she pricked her fingers seldom; and once a week she -attended a Shakespeare “propounding.” She took a great deal of exercise, -skimmed through all the light literature of the day, including the -magazines, and even knew a little science, just enough to make the -occasional clever man she met think her a prodigy as she smiled up into -his face and murmured something about “the great body of force” or a -late experiment in telepathy. - -She had a bright way of saying nothing, a cool, shrewd head, and an -endless stock of small-talk. Both sexes approved of her as a clever, -charming, well-regulated young woman—all of which she indisputably was. - -Enthusiasm had long since been drilled out of her, but she had for -Hermia an attachment very sincere as far as it went—it may be added -that, if there had been more of Miss Simms, there would have been more -attachment. It is possible that Hermia, without her brilliant position, -would not have attracted the attention of Miss Simms, but it is only -just to Helen to say that the conditions affected her not a whit; she -was quite free from snobbery. - -She liked Hermia because she could not understand her—much as she was -influenced by the sea in a storm, or by mountains with lightning darting -about their crests. Whenever she entered Hermia’s presence she always -felt as if the air had become suddenly fresher; and she liked new -sensations. She did not in the least resent the fact that she could not -understand Hermia, that her chosen friend was intellectually a -hemisphere beyond her, and in character infinitely more complex. She was -pleased at her own good taste, and quite generous enough to admire where -she could not emulate. - -She was constantly amused at Hermia’s abiding and aggressive desire to -fall in love, but she was by no means unsympathetic. She would have -regarded an emotional tumult in her own being as a bore, but for Hermia -she thought it quite the most appropriate and advisable thing. Once in a -while, in a half-blind way, she came into momentary contact with the -supreme loneliness and craving of Hermia’s nature, and she invariably -responded with a sympathetic throb and a wish that the coming man would -not tarry so long. - -She was so glad she had thought of Cryder. She honestly believed him to -be the one man of all men who could make the happiness of her friend; -and she entered the ranks of the Fates with the pleasurable suspicion -that she was the author of Hermia’s infinite good. - -She surprised her father, the morning after her last interview with -Hermia, by coming down to breakfast. She was careful to let him finish -his roll to the last crumb and to read his paper to the acrid end. Then -she went over and put her finger-tips under his chin. - -He glanced up with a groan. “What do you want now?” he demanded, looking -at her over his eye-glasses. His periodical pettings had made him -cynical. - -“Nothing—for myself. Did you not say that some one had sent you tickets -for the next meeting of the Free Discussion?” - -“Yes; but you can’t have them to give to some girl who would only go to -show herself, or to some boy whose thimbleful of gray matter would be -addled before the lecture was half over. I am going to hear that lecture -myself.” - -“How perfectly enchanting! That is what I wished, yet dared not hope -for. And you are not only going yourself, but you are going to take -Hermia Suydam with you.” - -“Oh!” Mr. Simms raised his eyebrows. “I am? Very well. I am sure I have -no objection. Miss Suydam is the finest girl in New York.” - -“Of course she is, and she will make a sensation at the club; you will -be the envied of all men. And there is one thing else you are to do. As -soon as the exercises are over I want you to present Ogden Cryder to -her. I have particular reasons for wishing them to meet.” - -“What are the reasons?” - -“Never mind. You do as you are told, and ask no questions”—this in a -tone which extracted the sting, and was supplemented by a light kiss on -Mr. Simms’ smooth forehead. - -“Very well, very well,” said her father, obediently, “she shall meet -him; remind me of it just before I leave. And now I must run. I have a -case in court at ten o’clock.” - -He stood up and gave one of his handsome, iron-gray side-whiskers an -absent caress. He was not a particularly good-looking man, but he had a -keen, dark eye, and a square, heavy jaw, in both of which features lay -the secret of his great success in his profession. He was devoted to -Helen, and had allowed her, with only an occasional protest, to bring -him up. He could be brusque and severe in court, but in Helen’s hands he -was a wax ball into which she delighted to poke her dainty fingers. - -Helen wrote a note to Hermia, and he took it with him to send by an -unwinged Mercury. - -On Friday morning Helen went over to Second Avenue to make sure that her -friend had not changed her mind. She found Hermia in her boudoir, with -one of Cryder’s books in her hand and another on a table beside her. - -“What do you think of him?” demanded Miss Simms, somewhat anxiously, as -she adjusted her steel-bound self in a pile of cushions—straight-backed -chairs in this room there were none. - -Hermia shrugged her shoulders: “A decorous seasoning of passion; a -clear, delicate gravy of sentiment; a pinch of pathos; a garnish of -analysis; and a solid roast of dialect. Woe is me!—I have read two -whole volumes; and I pray that I may like the author better than his -books. But he is clever; there is no denying that!” - -“Oh, horribly clever! What are you going to wear, to-night?” - -“That dark-green velvet I showed you the other day.” - -“Lovely! And it will match your eyes to a shade. You will look, as -usual, as if you had just stepped out of an old picture. Mr. Cryder will -put you in a book.” - -“If he does I shall be a modern picture, not an old one. That man could -not write a tale of fifty years ago.” - -“So much the better for you! What you want is to fall in love with a -modern man, and let him teach you that the mediæval was a great animal, -who thought of nothing but what he ate and drank. I do not claim that -the species is extinct; but, at least, in these days we have a choice.” - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XII. - - - THE CLUB OF FREE DISCUSSION. - -Hermia looked at her reflection that evening with a smile. The shadowed -emerald of her velvet gown made her hair glow like vibrant flame. The -color wandered through her cheeks and emptied itself into her lips. Her -eyes were as green as the limpid floor of ocean-hollowed caverns. Across -her ivory-white shoulder swept a curving blue vein, thin as an infant’s -lash, and on the rise of her right breast were three little moles, each -marking the corner of a tiny triangle. - -Mr. Simms called for her promptly, and when they arrived at the -club-rooms they strolled about looking at the pictures and the people -until the exercises began. There were many literary and artistic -celebrities present, all of whom looked much like ordinary and well-bred -people; but to Hermia there was a luminous halo about each. It was her -first experience in the literary world, and she felt as if she had -entered the atmosphere of a dream. It was one of her few satisfactory -experiments. She was much stared at; everybody knew her by reputation if -not by sight; and a number of men asked to be presented. - -Among them was Mr. Overton, the editor who had published her poem in his -magazine. She changed color as he came up, but his manner at once -assured her that she was not recognized: he would have vindicated his -fraternity, indeed, had he been keen-sighted enough to recognize in this -triumphant, radiant creature the plain, ill-dressed, stooping girl with -whom he had talked for half an hour at the close of a winter’s day two -years before. Hermia, of course, no longer wrote; life offered her too -many other distractions. - -Mr. Overton suggested that they should go into the lecture-room and -secure good seats. He found them chairs and took one beside Hermia. - -“Ogden Cryder gives the address to-night,” he said, after he had -satisfied Hermia’s curiosity in regard to the names of a half-dozen -people. “Do you like his books?” - -“Fairly. Do you?” - -Mr. Overton laughed. “That is rather a direct question, considering that -I print one of his stories about every six months.” - -“Oh, you might not like them. You might publish them out of tender -regard for the demands of your readers.” - -Mr. Overton had a characteristic American face, thin, nervous, shrewd, -pleasant. He gave Hermia a smile of unwonted frankness. “I will confide -to you, Miss Suydam, that such is the case with about two-thirds I -publish. I thank Heaven that I do not have to read a magazine as well as -publish it. I have an associate editor who sits with his finger on the -pulse of the public, and relieves me of much vexation of spirit.” - -“But tell me what you think of Mr. Cryder.” - -Mr. Overton raised his eyebrows. “He is indisputably the best dialect -writer we have, and he is a charming exponent of surface passions. -Whether he would drown if he plunged below the surface is a question; at -all events he might become improper, and morality pays in this magazine -era. There he is now; no doubt we shall have a delightful address.” - -Hermia turned her head quickly, but Cryder had taken a chair at the foot -of the rostrum, and there were many heads between her own and his. A -moment later, however, the president of the club made the preliminary -remarks, and then gave place to Cryder. - -Hermia watched him breathlessly as he ascended the steps and stood -beside the table, waiting for the hearty welcome to subside. Was it _he_ -at last? He was certainly good to look at; she had never seen more -charming eyes—clear golden-hazel, half melancholy, wholly intelligent. -His small, well-shaped head was thickly covered with short, soft, -gold-brown hair; the delicate, aristocratic features were as finely cut -as those on an intaglio; and the thin, curved lips were shaded by a -small mustache. His figure, tall, light, graceful, had a certain -vibrating activity even in repose. His hand was white and tapering as -that of a woman, and his auditors were given opportunity to appreciate -it. - -The subject of the lecture was “The Dialect Element in American -Fiction,” and Mr. Cryder did it justice in a clear, ringing, musical -voice. He very properly remarked that it was the proud boast of America -that no other country, ancient or modern, could present such an array of -famous dialects, consequently no other country had ever had such -infinite variety in her literature. He would say nothing of the several -hundred dialects as yet awaiting the Columbus-pen of genius; he would -merely speak of those nine already discovered and immortalized—the -Negro, the Yankee, the Southern, the Creole, the Tennessee Mountain, the -Cow-boy, the Bret Harte Miner, the Hoosier, and the Chinese. Each of -these, although springing from one bosom, namely, that of the Great -American People, had as distinct an individuality as if the product of -an isolated planet. Such a feature was unique in the history of any -country or any time. The various _patois_ of the French, the -provincialisms of the English, the barbarisms of the Scotch, the brogue -of the Irish, were but so many bad and inconsequent variations upon an -original theme. Reflect, therefore, upon the immense importance of -photographing and preserving American neologies for the benefit of -posterity! In the course of time would inevitably come the homogeneity -of the human race; the negro, for instance, would pervade every corner -of the civilized earth, and his identity become hopelessly entangled -with that of his equally de-individualized blonde brother. His dialect -would be a forgotten art! Contemporaries would have no knowledge of it -save through the painstaking artists of their ancestors’ time. Reflect, -then, upon the heavy responsibility which lay upon the shoulders of the -author of to-day. Picture what must be the condition of his conscience -at the end of his record if he has failed to do his duty by the negro -dialect! Picture the reproaches of future generations if they should be -left ignorant of the unique vernacular of their grandfathers’ serfs! -(Applause.) He did not lay such stress upon the superior importance of -the negro dialect because he had enrolled himself among its faulty -exponents; he had taken his place in its ranks _because_ of that -superior importance. Nevertheless, he was by no means blind to the -virtues of those other eight delightful strings in the Great National -Instrument. No one enjoyed more than he the liquid and incomprehensible -softness of the Creole, the penetrating, nasonic strength of the Yankee, -the delicious independence of the Hoosier, the pine-sweet, redwood-calm -transcriptions of the prose-laureate of the West. He loved them all, and -he gloried in the literary monument of which they were the separate -stones. - -To do Mr. Cryder’s oration justice would be a feat which no modest -novelist would attempt. Those who would read that memorable speech in -its entirety and its purity will find it in the archives of the club, in -the sixth volume of the Sessional Records. After reading brief and pithy -extracts from the nine most famous dialect stories of the day, he sat -down with the applause of approval in his ears. - -Hermia turned to Mr. Overton: “He was guying, I suppose,” she said. - -Mr. Overton stared. “Certainly not,” he said, severely. “The value of -precisely rendered dialect is incalculable.” - -Hermia, quite snubbed, said no more; and in a few moments, Mr. Duncan, a -shrewd, humorous-looking little Scotchman, rose to reply. - -“I have nothing whatever to say in contradiction to Mr. Cryder’s remarks -regarding the value of dialect,” he said, looking about with a bland, -deprecating smile. “On the contrary, I have yet another word to add in -its favor. I hold that the value of dialect to the American author has -never yet been estimated. When a story has a lot of dialect, you never -discover that it hasn’t anything else. (Laughter, and a surprised frown -from Cryder.) Furthermore, as America is too young to have an -imagination, the dialect is an admirable and original substitute for -plot and situations.” (Laughter and mutterings; also a scowl from -Cryder.) “Again, there is nothing so difficult as the handling of modern -English: it is a far speedier and easier road to fame to manipulate a -dialect familiar to only an insignificant section of our glorious sixty -millions.” (“Hear, hear!” from a pair of feminine lips, and many -sympathetic glances at Cryder’s flashing eyes.) “Yet again, the common -fault found with our (I wish it understood that I speak always from the -standpoint of the country which I have adopted)—with our writers is -lack of passion. Now, nobody can be expected to be passionate when -groaning in the iron stays of dialect. Dialect is bit and curb to the -emotions, and it is only an American who is sharp enough to perceive the -fact and make the most of it. What is more, pathos sounds much better in -dialect than in cold, bald English, just as impropriety sounds better in -French, and love-making in Spanish. Contrast, for instance, the relative -pathos of such sentences as these—the throbbing sadness of the one, the -harsh bathos of the other: ‘I done lubbed you, Sally!’ ‘I loved you, -Maria.’” (Laughter from one side of the house; ominous silence from the -other.) “Truly, ’tis in the setting the jewel shines. I would like to -say, in conclusion,” he went on, imperturbably, “that Mr. Cryder, in his -enumeration of American neologics has omitted one as important and -distinctive as any in his category, namely, that of fashionable society. -In the virility, the variety, and the amplitude of her slang, America is -England’s most formidable rival.” - -He left the platform amidst limited applause, and then Mr. Cryder’s -pent-up wrath burst forth, and he denounced in scathing terms and -stinging epigrams the foreigner who had proved himself incapable of -appreciating one of his country’s most remarkable developments, and -attempted to satirize it from his petty point of view. - -The auditors were relieved when the exercises were over and the club’s -disruption postponed, and, betaking themselves to the supper-room, -dismissed both lecture and reply from their minds. - -Hermia was standing by one of the tables talking to three or four men, -when Mr. Simms brought up Cryder and introduced him. Cryder looked -absent and somewhat annoyed. He was evidently not in a mood to be -impressed by feminine loveliness. At the end of a few moments Hermia -wisely let him go, although with a renewed sense of the general flatness -of life. At the same time she was somewhat amused, and sensible enough -to know that it could not have been otherwise. - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XIII. - - - OGDEN CRYDER. - -Only the nineteenth century could have evolved Cryder. The infancy of a -democratic civilization produces giants. The giants build hot-houses, -and a flower, delicate, beautiful, exquisitely perfumed, but fragile, -light as bubbles of blown glass, is the result. America is now doing the -best she can with her hot-house flora. She has no great men, but the -flora is wondrous fine. Outside the forcing-houses is a wilderness of -weeds in which lies her future’s hope. - -Cryder would have taken the medal at an orchid show. He was light as a -summer breeze, yet as stimulating and fresh. He was daintily humorous, -yet seldom witty enough to excite envy. His conversation was like the -song of a lark, clear, brilliant, trilling, with never a bass note to -disturb the harmony. In a quick, keen, flashing way, he had an exact -knowledge of the salient world. He was artistic to his finger-tips, and -preferred an aquarelle to an oil. He had loved many times and hoped to -love as many more, and his love was always that of an æsthete. For -coarse passions he had a cold contempt. He had broken many roses from -their stems, but more because he thought an herbarium looked better when -filled than because he enjoyed the plucking of the flower. Probably it -is needless to observe that he never drank more than a pint bottle of -champagne, and that he never over-ate. - -The day after his address at the club he was walking down the avenue -when he met Helen Simms. He turned back with her, and finished the -afternoon in her drawing-room. - -Helen did not give him so much of her time without an object. She cared -little for Cryder, and few of her doings were unprompted by motive; life -was too brief. - -“You met Miss Suydam last night, did you not?” she asked, when Cryder -was comfortably established in an easy-chair near the fire. - -“Yes, for a moment. I was a little put out by Duncan’s attack on me, and -only stayed for a few words. I needed the solace of a cigarette.” - -“I read the account of the affair in this morning’s papers. Mr. Duncan’s -remarks were purely foolish, as he must have realized when he saw them -in print. However, you have the consolation of knowing that after your -reply he will not be likely to attack you again. But I am glad you met -Miss Suydam. She will interest you as a study. She is all the rage at -present. Every other man in town is in love with her.” - -Cryder turned to her with some interest in his eyes. “Is she so very -fascinating? She is certainly handsome—yes—stylishly handsome.” - -“Oh, she is a beauty! Such a unique type! And she is quite as different -from other people herself. That is her great trouble. She is called a -terrible flirt, but it is the men’s fault, not hers. She is always -looking for something, and can never find it.” - -“Sad and strange! Is she a young woman with yearnings?” - -“Not at all. She is the most sensible woman I know. She is merely -unusually clever, consequently she is very lonely. I do not believe any -man will ever satisfy her. She is like the sleeping princess in the -enchanted castle. She shuts herself up in that wonderful house of hers -and dreams of the lover who never comes.” - -“You touch my fancy; and what do you mean by her wonderful house?” - -“That house would delight your author’s soul. Every room is the -materialization of a dream, as Hermia would say;” and she gave him an -account of her friend’s inartistic but original abode. - -Cryder listened with much interest. Romance was a dead-letter to him, -but he was alive to the picturesque. He concluded that it would be quite -enchanting to make love to a woman in a feudal library or an Indian -jungle, and more than satisfactory to awaken the sleeping beauty. It -would be a charming episode for his present brief stay in New York, -altogether quite the choicest specimen in his herbarium. What she was -waiting for was a combination of brain and skill. - -“You have made me want to know her,” he said, “but, of course, she did -not ask me to call.” - -“I will take you to see her some time.” - -“That is very good of you. Some afternoon when you have nothing better -to do.” - -“Come on Monday. That is her day. You won’t have much chance to talk to -her, but then you can go again as soon as you like.” - -Cryder took out his note-book and penciled a memorandum, “On Monday, -then.” - -Helen concluded that if she had been born a man she would have elected -diplomacy as a career. - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XIV. - - - IN A METROPOLITAN JUNGLE. - -Cryder called on Hermia Monday afternoon. Although the room was full he -had a few words with her, and she thought him very charming. - -“I want to talk to you,” he said. “I have wanted to talk to you ever -since I met you, but I was in such a bad humor the other night that I -would not inflict you. Are you ever alone? Cannot I have an hour or two -some evening?” - -Hermia smiled. “Come on Thursday evening. I have not another evening -until late next week.” - -“I have an engagement, but I will break it. And will you think me -impertinent if I ask you to show me all over this wonderful house? There -is nothing like it in Europe.” - -“I shall be delighted,” said Hermia, enthusiastically. “So few people -appreciate it.” - -“It is good of you to think I can. But in thought I always dwell in the -past (he hated the past), and although my work is realistic, because -realism is of more value to literature, yet my nature is essentially a -romantic one. Only, one so seldom acknowledges romance, one is so afraid -of being laughed at.” - -He watched her as he spoke, and saw a sudden gleam come into her eyes. A -year’s training and her own native cleverness had taught Hermia not to -believe all that men said to her, but Cryder had struck a well-loved -chord. And she had no wish to be skeptical. - -On Thursday evening Hermia arrayed herself with great care. After much -deliberation she donned a gown which as yet she had never worn. It was -of tan-gold velvet, with irregular appliqués of dark-brown plush. Down -the front was a curious design of gold braid and deep-green brilliants. - -She received Cryder in the conservatory. It had but recently been -completed, and looked enough like a jungle to deceive the most -suspicious of tigers. The green tiles of the floor were painted with a -rank growth of grasses and ferns. Through the palms and tropical shrubs -that crowded the conservatory glared the wild beasts of far-off jungles, -marvelously stuffed and poised. The walls were forgotten behind a -tapestry of reeds and birds of the Orient. In one corner was a fountain, -simulating a pool, and on its surface floated the pink, fragrant lilies -that lie on eastern lakes. Few people had seen this jungle—before its -completion, Hermia had learned that it was dangerous to test her city’s -patience too far. - -Hermia sat down on a bank and waited for the curtain to rise. She felt -the humor of the situation, but she knew that the effect was good. A few -moments later Cryder came in and was charmed. He had the same remote -yearning for the barbaric that the small, blonde actor has for the part -of the heavy villain. As he walked down the jungle toward Hermia, he -felt that he gave this Eastern ideal its completing touch. - -Hermia held up her hand. “I would not have dared do this for any one but -you,” she said, “but you will understand.” - -“For Heaven’s sake do not apologize!” exclaimed Cryder. He raised her -hand to his lips and sat down on the bank beside her. “There was never -anything so enchanting in real life. And you—you are Cleopatra in your -tiger-hood.” - -“I was Semiramis before,” said Hermia, indifferently. She turned her -head and gave him a meditative glance. “Do you know,” she said, with an -instinct of coquetry rare to her, “I cannot understand your being a -realistic author.” - -He was somewhat taken aback, but he replied promptly: “That is a mere -accident. To tell you the truth, I care no more for realism than I do -for idealism, and dialect is a frightful bore. I will tell you what I -have told no one else. Now that my position is established, my name -made, I am going to leave dialect to those who can do no better, and -write a great romantic novel.” - -Hermia thought his last remark a trifle conceited, but she forgave it -for the sake of its sentiment. “I shall like that,” she said, “and be -romantic without sensationalism. Tell me the plot of your book.” - -“It is too vague to formulate, but you and your house are to be its -inspiration. I have wanted to meet a woman like you; the study will be -an education. Tell me of your life. You have not always been as you are -now?” - -Hermia gave him a startled glance. “What do you mean?” she demanded. - -“I mean that you have two personalities, an actual and an assumed. You -are playing a part.” - -Hermia gave him a fierce glance from beneath her black brows. “You know -that until a year ago I was poor and obscure, and you are rude enough to -remind me that I play the part of _grande dame_ very badly,” she -exclaimed. - -“I beg your pardon,” said Cryder, quickly, “I knew nothing of the kind. -You might have spent the last ten years in a fashionable boarding-school -for all I have heard to the contrary. But I repeat what I said. I -received two impressions the night we met. One was that you were at war -with something or somebody; the other that you had a double personality, -and that of one the world had no suspicion. It is either that you have a -past, or that you are at present in conditions entirely new and -consequently unfamiliar. I believe it is the latter. You do not look -like a woman who has _lived_. There is just one thing wanting to make -your face the most remarkable I have seen; but until it gets that it -will be like a grand painting whose central figure has been left as the -last work of the artist.” - -Hermia leaned her elbow on her knee and covered her face with her hand. -She experienced the most pleasurable sensation she had ever known. This -was the first man who had shown the faintest insight into her -contradictory personality and complicated nature. For the moment she -forgot where she was, and she gave a little sigh which brought the blood -to her face. To love would not be so difficult as she had imagined. - -“What is it?” asked Cryder, gently. He had been watching her covertly. -“I want to amend something I said a moment ago. You have not lived in -fact but you have in imagination, and the men your fancy has created -have made those of actual, prosaic life appear tame and colorless.” - -Hermia’s heart gave a bound. She turned to him with shining eyes. “How -do you know that?” she murmured. - -“Is it not true?” - -“Yes,” she said, helplessly, “it is true.” - -“Then I will tell you how I know. Because I have lived half my natural -life with the population of my brain, and dream-people know one another. -Ours have met and shaken hands while we have been exchanging -platitudes.” - -“That is very pretty,” said Hermia; “I hope their estates border upon -each other, and that their chosen landscape is the same, for -dream-people may have their antipathies, like the inhabitants of the -visible world. Because we have taken out our title-deeds in dream-land, -it does not follow that our tenants live in harmony.” - -“It would not—except that we both instinctively know that there has not -been even border warfare. There have been marriage and inter-marriage; -the princes of my reigning house have demanded in state——” - -Hermia interrupted him harshly: “There is no marriage or giving in -marriage in my kingdom. I hate the word! Are you very much shocked?” - -Cryder smiled. “No,” he said, “one is surprised sometimes to hear one’s -own dearest theories in the mouth of another, but not shocked. It only -needed that to make you the one woman I have wanted to know. You have -that rarest gift among women—a catholic mind. And it does not spring -from immorality or vulgar love of excitement—you are simply brave and -original.” - -Hermia leaned forward, her pupils dilating until her eyes looked like -rings of marsh about lakes of ink. “You know that—you understand that?” -she whispered, breathlessly. - -Cryder looked her full in the eyes. “Yes,” he said, “and no one ever did -before.” - -His audacity had the desired effect. Men were always a little afraid of -Hermia. She looked at him without speaking—a long gaze which he -returned. He was certainly most attractive, although in quite a -different way from any man born of her imaginings. Perhaps, however, -that gave him the charm of novelty. He was almost magnetic; he almost -thrilled her—not quite, but that would come later. She had received so -many impressions this evening that no one could master her. Yes, she was -sure she was going to love him. - -“No,” she said, at last, “no one ever did.” - -“You have been loved in a great many ways,” Cryder went on; “for your -beauty, which appeals to the senses of men, yet which at the same time -frightens them, because of the tragic element which is as apparent as -the passionate; for your romantic surroundings, which appeal to their -sentiment; for the glamour which envelops you as one of the most -sought-after women in New York; for your intellect; and for your -incomprehensibility to the average mind, which has the fascination of -mystery. But I doubt if any man has ever known or cared whether you have -a psychic side. If I fall in love with you, I shall love your soul, -primarily. Passion is merely the expression of spiritual exaltation. -Independently of the latter it is base. A woman of your strong psychical -nature could never forget the soul for the body—not for a moment.” - -“That is very beautiful,” murmured Hermia, dreamily. “Can it be? And are -you sure that I have any spirituality?” - -“If you do not know it, it is because you have never loved and never -been loved in the right way.” He sprang suddenly to his feet, and then, -before she could answer, he was gone. - -She sank her elbow into a cushion and leaned her cheek on her palm. -Cryder had touched her sensuous nature by the artistic novelty of his -wooing—her ideal had been brutal and direct. She had always imagined -she should like that best, but this was a new idea and very charming. It -appealed to the poetic element in her. The poetic vase tossed aloft the -spray of refined passion and rode contemptuously over the undertow of -sensuality. That was as it should be. - -She went up-stairs, and, after she was in bed, thought for a long time. -She slept until late the next day, and in the afternoon paid a number of -calls. In the temporary seclusion of her carriage she took pleasure in -assuring herself that Cryder was uppermost in her mind. - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XV. - - - A CLEVER TRIFLER. - -The next afternoon Cryder came again. Hermia received him this time in -the hall which, with its Gothic roof, its pictured windows, its walls -ribbed and dark, and its organ, looked like a cathedral. As she came -down the broad staircase, in a gown that made her look as if she had -stepped from some old French canvas, Cryder stood gazing at her for a -moment, then without a word sat down before the organ and began to play. -The organ needs only a skillful hand; its own rich, sonorous tones pour -soul through cold, calm fingers. Cryder played Tristan’s Death Song, and -Hermia sank into a chair and felt that naught existed but glory of color -and surge of sound. - -Cryder played but a short time—he never did anything too long—then -went over and sat beside her. He made her talk about herself, and -managed to extract much of her past. He learned nothing, however, of her -former lack of beauty. Then he entertained her brilliantly for an hour -with accounts of celebrated people he had met. - -After he had gone she felt a vague sense of disappointment; he had not -touched upon co-personal topics for a moment. The sense of -disappointment grew and deepened, and then she gave a sudden start and -smiled. She could not feel disappointment were she not deeply -interested. Was this the suffering, the restlessness, which were said to -be a part of love? Surely! She was pained that he could talk lightly -upon indifferent subjects, and apparently quite forget the sympathy -which existed between them. The pain and the chagrin might not be very -acute, but they were forewarnings of intenser suffering to come. Of -course she wanted to suffer. All women do until the suffering comes. -After that they do not go out of their way to look for it. - -She went up-stairs and sat down before the fire in her boudoir. It was -very delightful to fall in love with a man as mentally agreeable as -Cryder. He would always entertain her. She would never be bored! The -intervals between love-making would never drag; she had heard that they -were sometimes trying. And then the pictures between those framing -intervals—when the fierce, hot tide of passion within her would leap -like a tidal wave, lashed into might by the convulsion at its heart. And -Cryder! To see the tiger in the man fling off its shackles and look -through the calm brown of his eyes! (Like all girls, Hermia believed -that every man had a tiger chained up inside him, no matter how cold he -might be exteriorly.) What a triumph to break down that cool -self-control! - -Her maid brought her a cup of tea and she drank it; then, resting her -elbows on her knees leaned her chin on her locked fingers. There were -some things she did not like about Cryder. He lacked literary -conscience, and she doubted if he had much of any sort. Her high ideals -still clung to her; but perhaps this was her mission in life—to remold -Cryder. A man is always much under the influence of the woman who gives -him his happiness; she would have a grand opportunity to make him -better. When the end came, as of course it would—she was no longer such -a fool as to imagine that love lasted forever—he should have much to -thank her for. - -When a woman thinks she loves a man, she dreams of making him better. -When she really loves him, she would have him share his virtues with the -saints. She loves his faults and encourages them; she glories in the -thought that his personality is strong enough to make her indifferent to -defects. This lesson, however, Hermia had yet to learn; but she was -pleased with the idea of putting the spirituality of which Cryder had -accused her to some practical use. She had not a very clear idea what -spirituality meant, but she thought she was learning. - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XVI. - - - A LITERARY DINNER. - -A few weeks later Hermia gave a dinner to Cryder. The other guests were -Mr. Overton, Mr. Simms, Alan Emmet, a young author who combined the -literary and the sensational in a manner which gave him much notoriety, -Mr. Langley, Cryder’s publisher, and Ralph Embury, a noted young -journalist. Helen Simms was there to chatter serious thought to ambush, -and Miss Starbruck, primly alert, and waiting to be shocked. - -Poor Miss Starbruck! She drifted like a gray shadow through Hermia’s -rooms, and longed for her modest cottage at Nantucket. She had been an -active member of sewing-circles and reading-clubs, and the farther down -her past’s perspective did this unexciting environment retreat, the -oftener did she sigh as she contrasted its cool shadows with the hot -glare into which fate’s caprice had suddenly cast her. But Hermia was -considerate—if Miss Starbruck appeared at her niece’s dinners and -receptions, and drove with her occasionally, she could sit up in her -room and dream of Nantucket and bewail duty as much as she pleased. Mrs. -Dykman was chaperon-in-chief. - -Hermia wore a gown of white velvet, simply made, and fitting in -wrinkleless perfection the free lines and curves of her full, lithe -figure. About her throat hung a silver chain of Roman workmanship, and -around her waist a girdle of similar but heavier links. The wiry maze of -her hair outshone the diamond pins that confined it. - -Miss Simms wore a dinner-gown of black tulle and a profusion of -chrysanthemums. Her hair was as sleek as a mole. - -The conversation was naturally more or less literary, and Hermia drew -out her ambitious guests with a good deal of skill. It was hard to curb -them when they were started, but she managed to make each feel that he -had had an opportunity to shine. Some day, when her personal interest in -life had ceased, she intended to have a _salon_, and this was a pleasant -foretaste. She even let Mr. Simms tell a few anecdotes, but after the -third gently suppressed him. - -It is not easy to check the anecdotal impulse, and both Mr. Langley and -Mr. Overton were reminiscent. The former told a tale of a young man who -had brought him a manuscript ten years before, and never returned to ask -its destiny. - -“He looked delicate, and I imagine he died of consumption,” said the -great publisher, placidly, as he discussed his pâté. “At all events I -have never heard from him since. Our readers unanimously advised us not -to publish the manuscript. It was entirely out of our line, and would -have involved great risk. We put it aside and forgot all about it. The -other day I happened to meet one of the readers through whose hands it -passed—he has not been with us for some years—and he asked me why I -did not publish the rejected book. ‘That sort of thing has become -fashionable now,’ he said, ‘and you would make money out of it.’ I -merely mention this as an illustration of how fashion changes in -literature as in everything else.” - -“You publishers are awful cowards,” said Emmet, in his drawling tones; -“you are so afraid of anything new that all authors you introduce are -branded Prophets of the Commonplace.” - -Mr. Langley’s blonde, pleasant little face took a warmer hue, and he -answered somewhat testily: “The publisher was brave, indeed, who -presented you to the public, Mr. Emmet.” - -In spite of the general laugh, Emmet replied imperturbably: “The best -advertisement I had, and the only one which I myself inserted, was that -‘Mrs. Bleeker’ had been refused by every conservative house in New York. -My reward is that I have the reputation instead of the firm.” - -“No; the firm hasn’t any left—that’s a fact,” retorted Mr. Langley; and -Emmet turned to Helen with a pout on his boyish face. - -“Do my books shock you?” he asked her. - -Helen smiled. “No, they do not,” she said, briefly. “I quite adore them. -I don’t always acknowledge having read them, but I don’t mind telling -you, considering that you are the author.” - -“Oh, some women assure me that nothing would induce them to read my -books. I am glad you have the courage of your opinions. I scorn women -who have not, and I will not talk to a girl unless I can do so as freely -as to a man.” - -“Oh, I am not a prude,” said Helen, lightly. “I only draw the line at -positive indecency, and you are quite vague enough. But do you always -talk to men on improper subjects?” - -“Oh—no; I merely meant that I like to feel the same lack of restraint -with women as with men. It is a bore to call up every thought for -inspection before you utter it.” - -“Yes,” said Helen; “you wouldn’t talk at all, you would only inspect.” - -“Speaking of mysterious disappearances,” broke in Embury’s voice, “what -has become of that girl who used to give us such bucketfuls of soulful -lava?—the one who signed herself ‘Quirus’?” - -Mr. Overton laughed, and much to Hermia’s relief every one turned to -him. “She brought me that poem I published, herself, and I came near -laughing outright once or twice. I have seen few plainer women; there -was such a general dinginess about her. At the same time there was a -certain magnetism which, I imagine, would have been pronounced had she -been a stronger woman. But I should not be surprised to hear that she -had died of consumption.” - -“Is it possible?” said Embury. “Her work was strong, however. Why didn’t -you take her in hand and bring her up in the way she should go?” - -“My dear Embury, life is too short. That girl was all wrong. She worked -her syllogisms backward, so to speak. Her intellect was molten with the -heat of her imagination, and stunted with the narrowness of her -experience. She reasoned from effect to cause. Her characters, instead -of being the carefully considered products of environment and heredity, -were always altered or distorted to suit some dramatic event. Intellect -without experience of the heart and of life is responsible for more -errors than innate viciousness which is controlled by worldly wisdom, or -natural folly which is clothed in the gown of accumulated knowledge. I -have seen so many clever writers go to pieces,” he added, regarding his -empty plate with a sigh; “they lie so. They have no conscience whatever, -and they are too clever to see it.” - -“Then how can they help themselves?” asked Hermia, with a puzzled look. - -“They had better wait until they can.” - -Hermia did not care to pursue the subject, and saw, moreover, that -Embury was waiting to be heard. “What would journalism do if no one knew -how to lie?” she asked him, with a smile, and was somewhat surprised -when every man at the table except Embury laughed aloud. - -Embury colored, but replied promptly: “It would probably die for want of -patronage.” - -“You are right, Embury,” said Cryder. “You could not have found a more -appreciative field for your talents.” - -Embury looked at him reproachfully, and Cryder continued: “I never could -resist the temptation to kick a friend when he was down. I will give you -an opportunity later.” - -“Life is made up of lost opportunities—I probably shall not see it. -True, I might review your books, but to do so I should have to read -them.” - -“Is this the way literary people always spar?” murmured Hermia to -Cryder. - -“Oh! do not let it worry you,” he replied. “This is only -facetiousness—American humor. It doesn’t hurt.” He dropped his voice. -“Are you not well? You look tired.” - -“I am tired,” said Hermia, returning his gaze—he seemed very near to -her at that moment. “Clever people, singly, are very delightful, but _en -masse_ they keep one on the rack.” - -“Don’t bother any more!” said Cryder. “Leave them to me; I will take -care of them.” - -“You are good,” murmured Hermia. “When I am old I shall like a _salon_; -I shall like the power of it. Now—it bores me a little.” - -Cryder bent somewhat nearer to her. “Do not wait too long for anything,” -he murmured. “A man’s power comes with age; a woman’s power goes with -age.” - -He turned from her suddenly and addressed a remark to Embury which -immediately gave that clever young man a chance to entertain his -companions for ten minutes. Hermia found herself drifting from her -guests. She had undergone many evolutions of thought and feeling during -the past few weeks. At times she had believed herself in love with -Cryder; at others, she had been conscious of indifferent liking. She was -puzzled to find that his abstract image thrilled her more than his -actual presence. On the other hand, she _liked_ him better when with -him. He was so entertaining, so sympathetic; he had such delicate tact -and charm. When absent, she sometimes thought of him with a certain -distaste; he had qualities that she disliked, and he was diametrically -different from all imagined lovers. Then she would make up her mind to -close her eyes to his deficiencies and to love him spiritually. She -would compel herself to think of him for hours together on an exalted -mental and spiritual plane, where passion had no place. Not that she -believed him incapable of passion, by any means—she believed that all -men were constructed on the same plan—but he was so different from that -man who now dwelt behind a barred door in her brain that she felt it her -duty, to both, to love him in a different way. She was surprised to find -that after such æsthetic communion she almost hated him. Reaction -following excess of passion may be short-lived; but immoderate -sentimentality leaves a mental ennui that requires a long convalescence. -Sentimentality is a growth of later civilization, and trails its roots -over the surface like a pine; while passion had its seeds planted in the -garden of Eden, and is root, branch, twig, and leaf of human nature. - -In summing up her sensations she had come to the conclusion that on the -whole she was in love with him. No one had ever moved her one-tenth as -much before. If she had not lost her head about him, it was because her -nature had slept too long to awake in a moment. That would come by -degrees. There were times when she felt the impulse to cast herself on -her face and sob farewell to the dreams of her youth and to the lover -who had been a being more real than Ogden Cryder; but she thrust aside -the impulse with a frown and plunged into her daily life. - -At opportune moments Hermia’s attention returned to her guests. Miss -Starbruck rose at a signal from her niece and the women went into the -library. The men joined them soon after, and Cryder, much to the -gratitude of his tired and dreamy hostess, continued to entertain them -until eleven o’clock, when they went home. - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XVII. - - - AN ILLUSION DISPELLED. - -The front door had closed after the last guest, the butler had turned -down the lights in the hall, Miss Starbruck had gone up-stairs, and -Hermia was standing by the library fire. She heard some one come down -the hall, and turned her head, her expression of indifference and mental -fatigue lifting a little. The portière was pushed aside and Cryder -entered the room. - - * * * * * - -The next morning Hermia stood gazing at her bedroom fire for a few -moments before going down-stairs. Her face wore a peculiar expression. -“Is there anything in love?” she murmured, half aloud. “_Is_ there?” - -She went down to the library and sank listlessly into a chair, and -covered her face with her hands. She did not love Cryder. There was but -one answer to the question now. Imagination and will had done their -utmost, but had been conquered by fact. She had made a horrible mistake. -She felt an impulse to fling herself on the floor and shriek aloud. But -the self-control of years was stronger than impulse. In spite of the -softening influences of happier conditions, she must suffer or enjoy in -her old dumb way until something had smashed that iron in her nature to -atoms or melted it to lava. - -But, if she was saturated with dull disgust and disappointment, her -conscience rapped audibly on her inactive brain. It was her duty to -herself and to Cryder to break the thing off at once—to continue it, in -fact, was an impossibility. But she shrank from telling Cryder that he -must go and not return. He loved her, not as she had wanted to be loved, -perhaps, but with his heart, his sentiment. She liked him—very much -indeed—and had no desire to give him pain. He might suffer the more -keenly because of the fineness of his sensibilities. Suppose he should -kill himself? Men so often killed themselves for women who did not love -them. She remembered that she had dreamed of men dying for hopeless love -of her; but, now that it seemed imminent, the romance was gone. It would -be nothing but a vulgar newspaper story after all. - -What should she do? She must tell him. She turned to her desk, then sank -back into her chair. She could not write. He would come again that -evening. She would tell him then. Written words of that sort were always -brutal. - -How she got through that day she never knew. It seemed as if the very -wheels of life were clogged. The sky was gray and the snow fell heavily; -the gas had to be lighted in the house. No one called; but Hermia was -willing to be left to solitude. She was not restless, she was dully -indifferent. The grayness of the day entered into her and enveloped her; -life in the Brooklyn flat had never looked colder and barer than in this -palace which her will and her wealth had created. - -When evening came she gave orders that no one but Cryder should be -admitted. Somewhat to her surprise he did not come. She did not care -particularly, but went to bed at half-past nine, and had Miss Newton rub -her to sleep. - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XVIII. - - - A BLOODLESS ENTHUSIAST. - -Cryder did not come the next day or evening, nor did he write. At first -Hermia experienced a mild fear that he was ill; but Helen Simms called -the following morning and said, en passant, that she had met him a few -moments before on the street. Then Hermia began to be piqued and a -little mortified. For several hours she thought less about dismissing -him. The next day the whole thing seemed like a dream; she caught -herself wondering if it had really happened. At this point she received -a note from Cryder. - - “It is a year since I have seen you, but I have a book due at - the publisher’s on Thursday, and I have been working night and - day. After the weary grind is over you will see too much of me. - In the mean time I am with you always. In fancy I look into your - eyes and see the waves break over the rocks, and watch the moon - coquet with the tides. Now the green bosom of the sea is placid - for a moment, and I see * * * the mermaids * * * sleeping in - their caves— - - “Until to-night! - “O. C.” - -Hermia shrugged her shoulders. It was very pretty, but rather tame. At -the same time her pride was glad to be reassured that he still loved -her, and she once more put her dismissal into mental shape and blunted -the arrow of decree with what art she possessed. - -When he was shown into the library that evening she rose nervously, -wondering how she was to keep him from kissing her. He raised her hand -lightly to his lips after his old habit, complimented her Catherine de’ -Medici gown, and threw himself into an easy-chair by the fire. - -“How grateful this fire is!” he exclaimed. “It is one of those horrid, -sleety nights. The horse slipped once or twice.” - -“Did you come in a cab?” asked Hermia. - -“Yes; I had not the courage to face that long block from the elevated.” - -He settled himself back in his chair, asked permission to light a -cigarette, and for an hour entertained her in his most brilliant vein. -Hermia listened with the most complex sensations of her life. The -predominating one at first was intense mortification. There was no -danger of this man blowing out his brains for any woman. She was rather -the most agreeable woman he knew just then, but—there were plenty of -others in the world. Then her brain and her philosophy came to her aid, -and she began to be amused. She had always been able to laugh at her own -expense, and she indulged in a little private burst whilst Cryder was -reciting a graphic passage from his lately finished book. The laugh -added several years to her twenty-five, but on the whole, she concluded, -it did her good. - -Then she began to reason: Why break it off? He is the most agreeable man -I have ever known; why lose him? If I dismiss him thus cavalierly, he -will be piqued at least, and I shall not even have his friendship. And I -can never love or have a throb of real feeling. All that was the -delusion of a morbid imagination. There are no men like those I have -dreamed of. The ocean rolls between the actual and the ideal. - -She did Cryder some injustice in the earlier part of her meditations. He -was really very fond of her. There were many things about her that he -liked immensely. She was beautiful, she was artistic, she had a fine -mind, and, above all things, she was the fashion, and he had carried her -off. But he never rushed at a woman and kissed her the moment he entered -the room; he did not think it good taste. Moreover, she looked -particularly handsome in that black-velvet gown and stiff white ruff, -and her position in that carved, high-backed chair was superb. His eye -was too well pleased to allow the interference of his other senses. -After a time he went over and lifted her face and kissed her. She -shrugged her shoulders a little but made no resistance. - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XIX. - - - TASTELESS FRUIT. - -She began to have an absurdly married feeling. When she had made up her -mind to drift on the wave she had chosen, she had consoled herself with -the thought that, if love was a disappointment, the situation was -romantic. By constantly reminding herself that she was the heroine of -“an experience,” she could realize in part her old wild dreams. To -create objective illusion was a task she soon renounced. No matrimonial -conditions were ever more prosaic and matter-of-fact than the various -phases of this affair. - -The evenings were long and very pleasant. Cryder smoked innumerable -cigarettes in the most comfortable chair in the library, and was never -dull. Hermia began to get rather fond of him in a motherly sort of way. -One night he had a cold and she gave him a dose of quinine; occasionally -she sent him certain of her cook’s dainty concoctions. She always had a -little supper for him on his particular evenings, and took care that his -favorite dishes were prepared. - -She had her intervals of disgust and fury with fate, but they were -becoming less frequent. Like all tragic and unversed women she was an -extremist. She had dreamed that life was one thing; her particular -episode had taught her that it was another. There was no medium nor -opposite pole; she had been wrong in every theory. - -Ennui was her worst enemy. Sometimes she got tired of the very sound of -Cryder’s voice—it ceased so seldom. She longed for variety of any sort, -for something to assure her that she was not as flatly married as Bessie -and her husband. One day when she was more bored than usual Helen Simms -came in. - -“How brilliant you look!” she exclaimed. “What _is_ the matter with -you?” - -“Ennui; life is a burden.” - -“Where is Ogden Cryder? I thought he had put ennui to flight.” - -“He is charming,” said Hermia, “and I am having that flirtation with him -that you advised; but even that is getting a little monotonous.” - -“I will tell you what you want,” exclaimed Helen, decidedly. “You want -to see something of the champagne side of life. You have had enough of a -flirtation by a library fire in a feudal room; it is time you did -something a little more _risqué_! Get Mr. Cryder to take you to some -awfully wicked place to dine—some place which would mean social -ostracism were you found out—only you mustn’t be found out. There is -nothing actually wrong in it, and the danger gives one the most -delightful sensation.” - -Hermia elevated her nose. “I hate anything ‘fast,’” she said. “I prefer -to keep out of that sort of atmosphere.” - -“Oh, nonsense! It is the spice of life; the spice without the vulgarity. -To have all the appearance of being quite wicked, and yet to be actually -as innocent as a lamb—what more stimulating? It is the only thing which -has saved my valuable life. I always amuse myself picturing how poor -papa would look if he should suddenly descend upon me. Then after the -dinner take a drive through the park in a hansom—at midnight! You quite -feel as if you were eloping; and yet—with none of the disagreeable -consequences. You elope, and that is the end of you. You drive through -the park in a hansom, and go home and to bed like a good little girl. -The next week—you drive through the park in another hansom. Then you -feel that life is worth living. Some night you and Mr. Cryder, Mr. -Winston and myself will have a tear.” - -“No!” exclaimed Hermia; “I abominate that sort of thing, and I will not -go.” - -But Helen, unconsciously, had appalled her. Was there no other escape -from ennui? What a prospect! Mrs. Dykman had promised to take her to -Europe. She determined to make that lady hasten her plans and go at -once. - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XX. - - - A COMMONPLACE MEETING. - -Quintard, after an absence of five years, had returned to New York to -find Hermia Suydam the sensation of the year. He saw her first at the -Metropolitan Opera-House, and, overhearing some people discussing her, -followed the direction of their glances. She had never looked more -radiant. Her hair shone across the house like burnished brass; her eyes -had the limpid brilliancy of emeralds, and the black lashes lay heavy -above and below them; her skin was like ivory against which pomegranate -pulp had been crushed, and her mouth was as red as a cactus-flower. Her -neck and arms and a portion of her bust were uncovered. Although it was -a first night and most of her sister belles were present, her peculiar, -somewhat barbaric beauty glittered like a planet in a firmament of -stars. - -Quintard left his seat at the end of the second act and walked back and -forth in the lobby until he met Ralph Embury. - -“Do you know Miss Suydam?” he asked the lively little journalist. - -Embury hastened to assure him that he had the honor of Miss Suydam’s -acquaintance. - -“Then introduce me,” said Quintard. - -Embury went at once to ask Miss Suydam’s permission for the desired -presentation, and, returning in a few moments, told Quintard to follow -him. Cryder gave his chair to Quintard, and Hermia was very gracious. -She talked in a low, full voice as individual as her beauty—a voice -that suggested the possibility of increasing to infinite volume of -sound—a voice that might shake a hearer with its passion, or grow -hoarse as a sea in a storm. Quintard had never heard just such a voice -before, but he decided—why, he did not define—that the voice suited -its owner. - -She said nothing beyond the small-talk born of the conditions of the -moment, but she gave him food for speculation, nevertheless. Had it not -been absurd, he would have said that twice a look of unmistakable terror -flashed through her eyes. She was looking steadily at him upon both -occasions—once he was remarking that he was delighted to get back to -America, and again that he had last seen Tannhäuser at Bayreuth. - -He was also perplexed by a vague sense of unreality about her. What it -meant he could not define; she was not an adventuress, nor was her -beauty artificial. While he was working at his problems the curtain went -down on the third act, and she rose to go. She held out her hand to him -with a frank smile and said good-night. When she had put on her wraps -she bent her head to him again and went out of the door. Then she turned -abruptly and walked quickly back to him. The color had spread over her -face, but the expression of terror had not returned to her eyes. They -were almost defiant. - -“Come and see me,” she said quickly. - -He bowed. “I shall be delighted,” he murmured; but she left before he -had finished. - -“She is lovely,” he thought, “but how odd! What is the matter with her?” - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XXI. - - - BACK TO THE PAST. - -Hermia gave a little supper after the opera, and, when the last guest -had gone, she went up to her room and sank down in a heap before her -bedroom fire. As she stared at the coals, the terrified look came back -to her eyes and remained there. She had received a shock. And yet -Quintard had only uttered a dozen sentences, and these she could not -recall. And she had never seen him before. Had not she? She closed her -eyes. Once more she was in her little Brooklyn room; that room had been -transformed * * * and she was not alone. She opened her eyes and gave a -quick glance about her, then plunged her head between her knees and -clasped her hands about the back of it. She must conjure up some other -setting from that strange, far-away past of hers—one that had never -been reproduced in this house. There had been splendid forests in those -old domains of hers, forests which harbored neither tigers nor panthers, -bulbuls nor lotus-lilies. Only the wind sighed through them, or the -stately deer stalked down their dim, cool aisles. Once more she drifted -from the present. He was there, that lover of her dreams; she lay in his -arms; his lips were at her throat. How long and how faithfully she had -loved him! Every apple on the tree of life they had eaten together. And -how cavalierly she had dismissed him! how deliberately forgotten him! -She had not thought of him for months—until to-night. - -She raised her head with abrupt impatience and scowled. What folly! How -many men had not she met with black hair and dark-blue eyes and athletic -frames? What woman ever really met her ideal? But—there had been -something besides physical resemblance of build and color. A certain -power had shone through his eyes, a certain magnetism had radiated from -him—she shuddered, threw herself back on the rug, and covered her eyes -with her hands. To meet him now! - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XXII. - - - QUINTARD IS DISCUSSED. - -The next afternoon Hermia was sitting in the library with Miss Starbruck -when Helen came in. Hermia greeted her eagerly. Helen always diverted -her mind. Perversely, also, she wanted to hear some one speak of -Quintard. - -“I have only a few moments,” said Helen. “I told Mr. Winston to call for -me at four. We are going to find a place to walk where we shall not meet -everybody we know——.” She stopped suddenly as she caught sight of Miss -Starbruck’s gray, erect figure and shocked expression. “I beg your -pardon, Miss Starbruck,” she said, sweetly; “I did not see you.” - -“Why do you object to meeting people you know when you walk with young -men?” demanded Miss Starbruck, severely. - -Helen, by this time, had quite recovered her presence of mind. “Oh! they -always want to stop and talk,” she said, lightly, “and that is such a -bore.” Then she turned to Hermia: “I saw Grettan Quintard in your box -last night. Did you ever hear such a name? As hard as a rock! But I -imagine it suits him—although he felt pretty bad five years ago.” - -“What about?” demanded Hermia. - -“You never heard that story? But, to be sure, that was before your time. -He was awfully in love with Mrs. Theodore Maitland—one of the prettiest -women in town—and she with him. Everybody was talking, and finally Mr. -Maitland found it out. He was very cool about it; he calmly went down -town to a lawyer and told him to begin proceedings for a divorce. He -sent for his things and took rooms at a hotel. Everybody cut Mrs. -Maitland, and she felt so horrible that she killed herself. Quintard was -fearfully upset. He went abroad at once and staid five years. This is -his first reappearance.” - -“A true nineteenth-century romance!” exclaimed Hermia, sarcastically. -“An intrigue, a divorce court, and a suicide!” But she had listened with -a feeling of dull jealousy, and the absurdity of it angered her. Her -imagination had made a fool of her often enough; was she about to weakly -yield herself to its whip again? What was Quintard or his past to her? -“I rather liked his face,” she added, indifferently. “Did you know him -before he went away?” - -“Only by sight. I was not out. For the matter of that he went out very -little himself until the Mrs. Maitland episode. He cared nothing for -society, and only went into it to be with her. He wasn’t even very much -of a club man, and had few intimates. I met him the other night at Mrs. -Trennor-Secor’s dinner, and he took me in. I can’t say I care much for -him; he’s too quiet. But he is awfully good-looking, and has great -distinction. It is time,” she added, glancing at the clock, “for Mr. -Winston to appear.” - -“Are you engaged to that young man?” asked Miss Starbruck. - -Helen stared. “Oh, no!” she said, with a little laugh; “he is only my -first infant-in-waiting.” - -The “infant” arrived as she spoke. He was a mild, blonde, -inoffensive-looking youth, so faithful to his type that it was difficult -to remember him by name until closer acquaintance had called out his -little individualities. He had his importance and use, however; he knew -how to get up and carry off a ball. He even attended to the paying of -the bills when husbands were too busy or had moved to Greenwood. He had -saved Hermia a great deal of trouble, and she rewarded him by taking him -to the theater occasionally. He admired her in a distant, awe-struck -way, much as a pug admires the moon; but he preferred Helen Simms. - -“I am afraid you will find it rather cold for walking,” he said to -Helen, with his nationally incorrect imitation of English drawl and -accent. “It is quite beastly out, don’t you know?” - -“Yes,” said Helen, “I know; but you will have to stand it. Good-bye, -Hermia. A walk would not hurt you; you are looking pale.” - -“Aren’t you going to let me sit down for a moment?” asked Winston. - -“No, it is getting late; and, besides, Hermia doesn’t want you. Come.” - -They went out, and Miss Starbruck remarked: “That is the average man of -to-day, I suppose. They were different when I was young.” - -“Oh, no; that is not the average man,” said Hermia; “that is only the -average society man. They are two distinct species, I assure you.” - -“Well, at all events, I prefer him to that dreadful Mr. Quintard. I hope -he will not come to this house, Hermia.” - -“Oh, I have invited him,” said Hermia, indifferently. “He shines beside -some who come here, if you did but know it.” - -“Then I am thankful I do not know it,” exclaimed Miss Starbruck. “I -think I will go up-stairs and talk to Miss Newton.” - -“No,” said Hermia, “stay and talk to me. I am bored! I hate to be alone! -Sit down.” - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XXIII. - - - PLATONIC PROSPECTS. - -She met Quintard the next afternoon at a tea. She was standing with a -group of people when he joined her. After a moment he asked her to go -over to the other side of the room and talk to him. She was somewhat -amused at his directness, but went with him to a sofa and ignored the -rest of the company for a half-hour. - -At the end of that time she drew a long sigh of relief. He was not her -ideal; he was commonplace. He talked very well, but with none of -Cryder’s brilliancy. He was even a little didactic, a quality she -detested. And he had none of the tact of an accomplished man of the -world. She was not surprised to hear that he had not been to five -entertainments in as many years. There was no subtle flattery in his -manner; he did not appear to take any personal interest in her whatever; -sometimes he appeared inattentive to what she was saying. She wondered -why he had insisted upon talking to her. Moreover, he was cold, and -coldness and her ideal had never shaken hands. He looked as if nothing -could move that calm self-control, that slow, somewhat stiff formality. - -She saw him several times during the next two weeks, but never alone. In -the mean time she heard much of him. His personal appearance, his -wealth, his exile and its cause, made him an interesting figure, and -people began to remember and compare all the tales regarding him which -had floated across the Atlantic during the last five years. These tales -were of a highly adventurous nature, and were embroidered and fringed. - -Quintard was not very grateful. He went out seldom, and got away as soon -as he could. This, of course, made people wonder what he was doing. - -Hermia heard all these stories with some surprise. They seemed so -incongruous with the man. Assuredly there was neither romance nor love -of adventure in him; he was quite matter-of-fact; he might have been a -financier. She thought, however, that he had humor enough to be amused -at the stories he had inspired. - -One evening he found her alone. The night was cold, and she was sitting -in a heap in a big arm-chair by the fire, huddled up in a soft, bright, -Japanese gown. She did not rise as he entered, and he looked at her -calmly and took a seat on the other side of the hearth. - -“You look comfortable,” he said. “Those gowns are the warmest things in -the world. I have one that I wear when I sit by the fire all night and -think. If my dinner does not agree with me, I do not sleep like a lamb.” - -This was romantic! Hermia had a fine contempt for people who recognized -the existence of their internal organs. She raised her brows. “Why do -you eat too much?” she demanded. - -“Because I happen to feel like it at the time. The philosophy of life is -to resist as few temptations as you conveniently can. I have made it a -habit to resist but three.” - -“And they are?” - -“To tell a woman I love her, to make love to the wife of a friend, and -to have a girl on my conscience. The latter is a matter of comfort, not -of principle. The girl of to-day nibbles the apple with her eyes wide -open.” - -Hermia did not know whether she was angry or not. Her experience with -Cryder had affected her peculiarly. He had the super-refinement of all -artificial natures, and there had been nothing in his influence to -coarsen the fiber of her mind. Moreover, he had barely ruffled the -surface of her nature. She always had a strange feeling of standing -outside of herself, of looking speculatively on while the material and -insignificant part of her “played at half a love with half a lover.” - -She was not used to such abrupt statements, but she was too much -interested to change the conversation. - -“Do you mean that you never tell a woman when you love her?” she asked, -after a moment. - -“If I loved a woman I should tell her so, of course. I make it a -principle never to tell a woman that I love her, because I never do. It -saves trouble and reproaches.” - -Hermia leaned forward. “Did not you love Mrs. Maitland?” she asked. - -The color mounted to Quintard’s face. - -“My dear Miss Suydam, this is the nineteenth century—the latter -quarter. Love of that sort is an episode, a detached link.” He leaned -forward and smiled. “I suppose you think I talk like the villain in the -old-fashioned novel,” he said. “But codes of all sorts have their -evolutions and modifications. The heroes of the past would cut a -ridiculous figure in the civilization of to-day. I am not a villain. I -am merely a man of my prosaic times.” - -It was as she had thought—no romance, no love of the past. But the man -had a certain power; there was no denying that. And his audacity and -brutal frankness, so different from Cryder’s cold-blooded acting, -fascinated her. - -“Oh, no! I do not think you a villain,” she said; “only I don’t see how -you could have had the cruelty to——” - -“I am inclined to be faithful, Miss Suydam,” he interrupted. “In my -extreme youth it was the reverse, but experience has taught me to -appreciate and to hold on to certain qualities when I find them—for in -combination they are rare. When one comes to the cross-roads, and shakes -hands good-bye with Youth, his departing comrade gives him a little -packet. The packet is full of seeds, and the label is ‘philosophy.’” - -“I found that packet long before I got to the cross-roads,” said Hermia, -with a laugh—“that is, if I ever had any youth. How old are you?” - -“Oh, only thirty-four as yet. But I got to the cross-roads rather early. -What do you mean by saying that you never had any youth?” - -“Nothing. Are all those European stories about you true?” - -“What stories?” - -“Oh! all those stories about women. They say you have had the most -dreadful adventures.” - -Quintard shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know what the stories are,” he -said. “Nor do I particularly care. I am not posing as a masculine Circe -or a destroyer of households. You must remember that there are more than -two classes of women in the world. There are many women who are without -any particular ties, who live a drifting, Bohemian sort of existence, -who may have belonged to society once, but have exhausted it, and prefer -the actualities of life. These women are generally the most -companionable in every respect. And they are more or less indifferent to -public opinion.” - -“I was sure of one thing!” exclaimed Hermia; “but, if possible, you have -made me more sure: you have not a spark of romance in you.” - -An expression of shyness crossed Quintard’s face, and he hesitated a -moment. - -“Oh, well, you know, nobody has in these days,” he said, awkwardly. -“What would people do with romance? They would never find any one to -share it.” - -“No,” said Hermia, with a laugh, “probably they would not.” - -He went away soon after, and she did not see him again for a week. -Cryder came the next night, and Hermia had never liked him less. He was -as entertaining as usual, but he was more like highly-charged mineral -water than ever. He spoke of his personal adventures; they were tame and -flat. Nothing he said could grasp her, hold her. He seemed merely an -embodied intellect, a clever, bloodless egoist, babbling eternally about -his little self. As she sat opposite him, she wondered how she had -managed to stand him so long. She was glad Quintard had come to relieve -the monotony. He was the sort of man she would care to have for a -friend. - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XXIV. - - - AN UNEXPECTED CONFESSION. - -She met Quintard next at one of Mrs. Dykman’s _musicales_. That -fashionable lady was fond of entertaining, and Hermia was delighted to -pay the bills. If it pleased Mrs. Dykman to have her entertainments in -her own house rather than in the mansion on Second Avenue, she should be -gratified, and Winston never betrayed family secrets. - -People were very glad to go to Mrs. Dykman’s house. She never had any -surprises for them, but they always went away feeling that her evening -had been one of the successes of the season. In her palmier days she had -done much entertaining, and seen a great deal of the world. She had been -a beauty in her youth, and was still so handsome that people forgot to -insult her by calling her “well preserved.” If her hair had turned gray, -the world never found it out; she wore a dark-brown wig which no one but -her maid had ever seen elsewhere than on her head; and her unfathomable -gray eyes had not a wrinkle about them. She still carried her head with -the air of one who has had much incense offered her, and, although her -repose amounted to monotony, it was very impressive. She had grown -stout, but every curve of her gowns, every arrangement of draperies, -lied as gracefully and conclusively as a diplomatist. She was one of the -few women upon whom Quintard ever called, and he was a great pet of -hers. - -“She may not be an intellectual woman,” he said to Hermia, on this night -of the _musicale_, “but she has learned enough in her life to make up -for it. I have seldom met a more interesting woman. If she were twenty -years younger, I’d ask her to marry and knock about the world with me.” - -“Yes? I suppose you find the intellectual a good deal of a bore, do you -not?” - -“Was that a shot? By itself, emphatically yes—a hideous bore. When -combined with one or two other things, most eagerly to be welcomed.” - -“What other things?” - -“Oh, womanliness and _savoir_—but, primarily, passion.” - -“Do you know that you are very frank?” exclaimed Hermia. - -“I beg your pardon,” humbly. “I have a bad habit of saying what I think, -and, besides, I feel a doubly strong impulse to be frank with you. I -abominate girls as a rule; I never talk to them. But I have rather a -feeling of good comradeship with you. It always seems as if you -_understood_, and it never occurs to me that I can make a mistake with -you. You are quite unlike other girls. You have naturally a broad mind. -Do not deliberately contract it.” - -“No,” said Hermia, quite mollified, “I have no desire to; and, for some -peculiar reason, what you say may startle but it never offends. You have -a way of carrying things off.” - -After the music and supper were over, Hermia sat with him awhile -up-stairs in her aunt’s boudoir. - -“Have you idled away your whole life?” she asked. “Do you never intend -to _do_ anything?” - -“Do you think it is doing nothing to spend five years in the study of -Europe?” - -“But what are you going to _do_ with it all? Just keep it in your head?” - -“What would you have me do with it? Put it in a book and inflict it on -the world?” - -“Yes. Give yourself some definite object in life. I have no respect for -people who just drift along—who have no ambition nor aim.” - -“Well, I will tell you something if you will promise not to betray me,” -he said, quickly: “I am writing a book.” - -“No?” exclaimed Hermia. “Actually? Tell me about it. Is it a novel? a -book of travels?” - -“Neither. It is a series of lives of certain knights of Norman days -about whom there are countless fragmentary legends, but nothing has ever -been written. I am making a humble endeavor to reproduce these legends -in the style and vernacular of the day and in blank verse. Imagine a -band of old knights, broken-down warriors, hunted to the death, and -hiding in a ruined castle. To while away the time they relate their -youthful deeds of love and war. Do you like the idea?” - -Hermia leaned forward with her eyes expanded to twice their natural -size. “Do you mean to tell me,” she said, “that you care for the -past—that its romance appeals to you?” - -Quintard threw himself back in his chair and raised his eyebrows a -little. “I have gone so far, I may as well confess the whole thing,” he -said. “I would have lived in the feudal ages if I could. Love and war! -That is all man was made for. Everything he has acquired since is -artificial and in the way. He has lost the faculty of enjoying life -since he has imagined he must have so much to enjoy it with. Let a man -live for two passions, and he is happy. Let him have twenty ways of -amusing himself, and he lowers his capacity for enjoying any one in the -endeavor to patronize them all.” - -Hermia remembered her experience with Cryder. He had talked very -beautifully of the past—once. Life was making her skeptical. “Have you -written any of your book?” she asked. - -“Yes, it is nearly done.” - -“Would you let me see it? Or is that asking too much? But—that period -of history particularly interests me. I used to live in it.” - -“Did you? I should be very glad to have you read my effusions; but -wading through manuscript is a frightful bore.” - -“I have waded through a good deal,” said Hermia, briefly. “Bring it -to-morrow night. No,”—she had suddenly recollected that the next was -Cryder’s evening. “Bring it the next night—no—the next. Will that do?” - -“Yes,” said Quintard. “I will afflict you, with great pleasure, if you -will let me.” - -When they went down-stairs, Mrs. Dykman wrapped Hermia’s furs more -closely about her. “I hope, my dear,” she murmured, “you do not mind -that the whole house is talking about you. Do you know that Mr. Quintard -is the only man whom you have condescended to notice during the entire -evening?” - -“No?” said Hermia. “I had not thought about it. No, I don’t mind. A -woman is not happy until she is talked about—just a little, you know. -When her position is secure, it makes her so picturesque—quite -individual.” - -“You will be engaged before the week is over. You will be accused of -having deserted Mr. Cryder, and entered upon a more desperate flirtation -yet. The ultra caustic will remember Grettan Quintard’s reputation.” - -“You can deny the engagement,” said Hermia. - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XXV. - - - THE POWER OF PERSONALITY. - -A few evenings later Quintard came with a portion of his book, which he -had had type-written for her. While he amused himself with the many rare -volumes on the library shelves, Hermia read the introduction and the -four tales with equal interest and astonishment. They had a vital power -which seemed to grip her mind as with a palpable hand and hold it until -she had read the last of the sheets. Quintard had reproduced the style -and spirit of the age with remarkable fidelity—the unbridled passions, -the coarse wit, the stirring deeds of valor. He made no attempt at -delicate pathos or ideality. When a man suffered, he raged like a -wounded boar; every phase of his nature was portrayed in the rough. - -Hermia dropped the sheets into her lap and gazed into the fire. Her -opinion of Quintard had quite changed. Why did she not love him? But she -did not. He attracted her mentally, and his character fascinated her, -but stone could not be colder than her heart. Did he go out of the room -that moment never to return, she would not care, save that a promising -friend would be lost. He had come too late. She no longer possessed the -power to love. She shrugged her shoulders. They could be friends; that -was quite enough. - -Her comments were very flattering and discriminating, and he was much -gratified, and gave her a general idea of the rest of the book. She had -one or two books that might help him, and she promised to send them to -his rooms. - -“You are a remarkable mixture,” she said, in conclusion; “at times you -seem almost prosaic, altogether matter-of-fact. When I first met you, I -decided that you were commonplace.” - -“You will allow a man to have two sides, at least,” said Quintard, -smiling. “I cannot always be walking on the ramparts of imagination. I -enjoy being prosaic at intervals, and there are times when I delight to -take a hammer and smash my ideals to atoms. I like to build a castle and -raze it with a platitude, to create a goddess and paint wrinkles on her -cheek, to go up among the gods and guy them into common mortals, to kiss -a woman and smother passion with a jest.” - -“That is the brutality in your nature.” - -“Yes,” said Quintard, “I suppose that is it.” - -She watched him for a moment. He had taken a chair near her and was -leaning forward looking at the fire, his elbow on his knee, his chin in -the cup of his hand. His strong, clean-cut profile stood out like a -bas-relief against the dark wood of the mantel. The squareness of his -jaw and the thickness of his neck indicated the intense vitality of his -organism; his thick, black mustache overshadowed a mouth heavy and -determined; his dense, fine hair clung about a head of admirable lines; -and his blue eyes were very dark and piercing. He had the long, -clean-limbed, sinewy figure of a trained athlete, and there was not an -ounce of superfluous flesh on it. He combined the best of the old -world’s beauty with the best of the new, and Hermia looked at him with a -curious mixture of national and personal pride. - -“I like brutality,” she said, abstractedly; “all the great men of the -world had it.” She turned to him suddenly. “You look as if you always -got whatever you made up your mind to have,” she said. “Do you?” - -“Yes,” he said, “usually.” - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XXVI. - - - HERMIA HEARS THE TRUTH. - -He called one morning soon after and spent the entire day with her. He -had finished the last of the stories and he read it to her. The tale was -a tragic one, and had a wild, savage pathos in it. It brought the tears -to her eyes, and at the climax she leaned forward with a gasp. - -“Oh, you can cry?” said Quintard. - -“It is only nervousness,” hastily. “I never do. I may have been able to -once, but I no longer possess feeling of any sort. Don’t think that I am -ridiculous and blasé; it is simply that I cannot take any personal -interest in life. I have made the discovery that there is nothing in it -a little sooner than most people—that is all.” - -“You are a little crazy,” said Quintard. “You will get over it.” - -The blood mounted to the roots of Hermia’s hair, and her eyes looked as -fierce as if she were one of Quintard’s barbarians. She felt more anger -than she cared to betray. No other man living would have dared make such -a speech to her. Cryder would have humored her, and she had expected -Quintard to be suitably impressed. - -“What did you say?” she demanded, with an effort at control. - -He looked at her unmoved. “You have a great many ridiculous notions -about life,” he said. “In addition, you have less knowledge of yourself -than any woman I have ever known. The two things combined have put your -mind out of joint.” - -Hermia felt as if she were stifling. “I wonder you dare,” she said -through her teeth. - -“Your point of view is all wrong,” he went on; “you see everything -through glasses that do not fit your eyes. You are not fond of talking -about yourself, but you have given me several opportunities to gather -that. You think you have exhausted life, whereas you have not begun to -live. You simply don’t even know what you are thinking about. You know -less about the world than any woman of brain and opportunities I ever -met in my life, and it is because you have deliberately blinded yourself -by false and perverted views.” - -Hermia’s teeth were clinched and her bosom was heaving. “You may as well -finish,” she said, in a voice ominously calm. - -“Just to mention one point. You have said you do not believe in -matrimony—particularly when people love each other. I have had every -experience with women that a romantic temperament can devise, so perhaps -you will allow me to tell you that I have come to the conclusion that -the only satisfactory relationship for a man and woman who love each -other is matrimony. The very knowledge that conditions are temporary, -acts as a check to love, and one is anxious to be off with one affair -for the novelty of the next. Moreover, if human character is worth -anything at all, it is worth its highest development. This, an irregular -and passing union cannot accomplish; it needs the mutual duties and -responsibilities and sacrifices of married life. If ever I really loved -a woman I should ask her to marry me. You have got some absurd, romantic -notions in your head about the charm and spice of an intrigue. Try it, -and you will find it flatter than any matrimony you have ever seen or -imagined.” - -Hermia, with a cry of rage, sprang from her chair and rushed from the -room. She dropped her handkerchief in her flight, and Quintard went -forward and picked it up. “She is ready to tear me bone from bone,” he -thought; “but, if I have destroyed some of her illusions, I shall not -mind.” He passed his hand tenderly over the handkerchief, then raised it -suddenly to his lips. A wave of color rushed over his dark face, making -it almost black. “She was superb in her wrath,” he muttered, unsteadily. - -He laid the handkerchief on the table and went back to his seat. After a -time Hermia returned. She was very pale, and looked rather ashamed of -herself. It was characteristic of her that she made no allusion to the -past scene. She had a book in her hand. “I came across this in an old -book-shop the other day,” she said. “I am fond of prowling about dusty -shelves; I suppose I shall end by becoming a bibliomaniac. This is a -collection of fragmentary verses which it is said the Crusaders used to -sing at night on the battle-field. I thought you might use it.” - -Quintard looked as pleased as a boy. “It was very good of you to think -of me,” he said impulsively, “and I shall make use of it. But tell me -what you think of this last yarn.” - -“It is magnificent,” said Hermia; “I believe you are that rarest object -in the history of the world—a poet.” - -“I have written miles of it, and have made some of the most beautiful -bonfires in history.” - -Hermia laughed. “Could you never be consistently serious?” - -“Yes, I could,” said Quintard, briefly. - -Hermia looked at the door. “Higgins is coming to announce luncheon,” she -said. - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XXVII. - - - FIVE POINTS OF VIEW. - -At five o’clock Mrs. Dykman, Helen Simms, and Cryder dropped in for a -cup of tea, and Miss Starbruck came down-stairs. - -Quintard insisted that, in spite of Miss Starbruck’s open disapproval of -him, she was his proudest conquest; and her abuse was certainly growing -milder. She rarely failed to appear at these informal tea-drinkings; -there was just enough of the worldly flavor about them to fascinate -without frightening her; and it was noticeable that to whatever Quintard -chose to say she listened with a marked and somewhat amusing interest. -The poor old lady was no more proof against personal magnetism and the -commanding manliness which was Quintard’s most aggressive characteristic -than her less rigid sisters. Quintard threatened to marry her and -deprive Hermia of her only natural protector, but Miss Starbruck was as -yet innocent of his designs. - -“This is quite a family party,” said Helen; “let us draw our chairs -close to the fire and warm ourselves with brotherly affection; it is so -beastly cold out. But by this great log fire one thinks himself in the -hall of an old English castle; and the streets of New York are not. I -feel almost romantic.” - -“Let us tell stories,” suggested Cryder. - -“No,” replied Helen, promptly, “I don’t want to listen to long stories. -You would tell your own, and I can’t understand dialect. Besides, I want -to talk about myself—I beg that prerogative of your sex. As this is a -family party, I am going to tell my woes and ask advice. I want to get -married! Shall I, or shall I not?” - -“Who is the man?” asked Cryder. “How can we advise until we know whether -he is worthy to buy your bonnets?” - -“I have not decided. The man is not much of a point. I simply want to be -married that I may be free,” and she heaved a sigh. - -“Free of what?” asked Hermia, sarcastically. “Of freedom?” - -“Oh, this is not freedom, my dear. A girl always has to be chaperoned. A -married woman chaperones. Oh, the difference!” - -“But where do you propose to keep the future Mr. Helen Simms?” asked -Cryder, laughing. - -“At his club, or in a rose-colored boudoir. Mine will be blue.” - -“Helen Simms! you are the most immoral young woman I ever—ever——.” -The wrathful voice broke down, and all turned to Miss Starbruck with -amused sympathy. - -“Are you not yet used to our wicked Gotham?” asked Quintard, taking a -chair beside her. - -“No!” Miss Starbruck had recovered her voice. “And I think it abominable -that the holy institution of matrimony should be so defamed.” - -“Oh, dear Miss Starbruck,” cried Helen, good-naturedly. “It is time you -left Nantucket. That primitive saying has long since been paraphrased -into ‘the unholy institution of whithersoever thou goest, in the other -direction will I run.’ And a jolly good revolution it is, too. Please do -not call me immoral, dear Miss Starbruck. You and I were born on -different planets, that is all.” - -“Marriage is a necessary evil,” said Mrs. Dykman’s soft, monotonous -voice. “You have done well to defer it as long as possible, but you are -wise to contemplate a silken halter. No woman’s position is established, -nor has she any actual importance until she has a husband. But marry -nothing under a million, my dear. Take the advice of one who knows; -money is the one thing that makes life worth living. Everything else -goes—youth, beauty, love. Money—if you take care that does not go -too—consoles for the loss of all, because it buys distractions, -amusement, power, change. It plates ennui and crystallizes tears to -diamonds. It smoothes wrinkles and keeps health in the cheek. It buys -friends and masks weakness and sin. You are young, but the young -generation is wiser than the old; my advice, I feel sure, will not be -thrown away.” - -“And this!” exclaimed Miss Starbruck, hoarsely; “this is what life has -come to! I am an old maid, and have done with all thought of marriage; -but I am not ashamed to say that many years ago I loved a young man, and -had he lived would have married him, and been a true and faithful and -loving wife. That a woman should marry from any other motive seems to me -scandalous and criminal.” - -“What do truth and duty mean?” demanded Hermia scornfully. “Monotony and -an ennui worse than death. You are happy that you live your married life -in imagination, and that your lover died before even courtship had begun -to pall. Still”—she shrugged her shoulders as she thought of -Bessie—“perhaps you wouldn’t have minded it; some people don’t.” - -“No,” said her aunt; “I wouldn’t have minded it. I would have -appreciated it.” - -Hermia turned to her with a curious glance. “How differently people are -made,” she said with a sigh. “The monotony of married life would drive -me mad.” - -Quintard rose and rested his elbow on the mantel. “Did it ever occur to -you,” he said, “that monotony is not an absolutely indispensable -ingredient of married life?” - -Hermia shrugged her shoulders. “It ruins more wedded lives than jealousy -or bad temper.” - -“True; but if married life is monotonous, it is largely the fault of -those who suffer from the monotony. It is true that the average human -animal is commonplace; therefore monotony in the domestic relations of -such men and women follows as a matter of course. They suffer the -consequences without the power to avert them. Those who walk on the -plane above, shiver under the frozen smile of the great god Bore as -well—but they can avert it. The ennui that kills love is born of -dispelled illusions, of the death of the dramatic principle, which is -buried at the foot of the altar. When a man is attempting to win a woman -he is full of surprises which fascinate her; he never tarries a moment -too long; he is always planning something to excite her interest; he -watches her every mood and coddles it, or breaks it down for the -pleasure of teaching her the strength of his personality; he does not -see her too often; above all, he is never off guard. Then, if he wins -her, during the engagement each kiss is an event; and, another point, it -is the future of which they always talk.” - -“How is it after marriage? We all know.” - -Cryder gave an unpleasant little laugh, common to him when some one else -had held the floor too long. “Taking your own theory as a premise,” he -said, “I should say that the best plan was not to get married at all. -People who marry are doomed to fall between the time-honored lines. -Better they live together without the cloying assurance of ties; then, -stimulus is not wanting.” - -“That is all very well for people who are independent of the world’s -opinion,” said Mrs. Dykman, “but what are they to do who happen to have -a yearning for respectable society?” - -Cryder shrugged his shoulders. “They must be content with water in their -claret. You can’t get intoxicated and dilute your wine, both.” - -“I deny that,” said Quintard. “I believe that matrimony can be made more -exciting and interesting than liaison, open or concealed, because it -lacks the vulgarity; it can be made champagne instead of beer.” - -“You ought to know,” murmured Mrs. Dykman. - -“Mr. Quintard!” exclaimed Miss Starbruck; “I am glad to hear you say -that, although I do not think it is a very proper subject to discuss -before both men and women.” - -“My dear Miss Starbruck,” broke in Helen, with a laugh; “this is the -progressive nineteenth century, and we are people of the world—the -wild, wicked world. We are not afraid to discuss anything, particularly -in this house, where the most primitive and natural woman in the world -is queen. It has come to be a sort of Palace of Truth. We don’t offend -the artistic sense, however.” - -“Miss Simms has been right more than once to-day,” said Quintard. “She -said a moment ago that one must be married to be free. May I venture the -assertion that, in the present state of society, the highest human -freedom is found in the bonds of matrimony alone?” - -“Explain your paradox,” said Hermia, who had made no comment to -Quintard’s remarks. - -“It is easily explained. I say nothing whatever of passing fancies, -infatuations, passions, which are best disposed of in a temporary union. -I refer to love alone. When a man loves a woman he wants her constant -companionship, with no restraint but that exercised by his own judicious -will and art. He wants to live with her, to travel with her, to be able -to seek her at all hours, to follow his own will, unquestioned and -untrammeled. This, outside of conventional bonds, is impossible without -scandal, and no man who loves a woman will have her lightly spoken of if -he can help it. But let the priest read his formula, and the man so -bound is monarch of his own desires, and can snap his fingers at the -world. I have neither patience nor respect for the man who must have the -stimulus of uncertainty to feed his love. He is a poor, weak, -unimaginative creature, who is dependent upon conditions for that which -he should find in his own character.” - -“I never expected to hear you talk like this, Mr. Quintard!” exclaimed -Miss Starbruck, “for you have been a very immoral man.” - -Quintard looked at her with an amused smile. “Why immoral, Miss -Starbruck?” - -“You have—well, people say——” stammered poor Miss Starbruck, and then -broke down. - -Mrs. Dykman came to the rescue. “Miss Starbruck means that you have -lived with a number of women and have not taken any particular pains to -hide the fact.” - -“Is that immoral? I think not. I have lived with no woman who had -anything to lose, and I have lived with no woman who was not my equal -intellectually. Companionship was quite as much an object as passion. I -never took a woman out of the streets and hung jewels upon her and -adored her for her empty beauty, and with a certain class of women I -have never exchanged a dozen words since my callow youth. Furthermore, I -never won a woman’s affections from her husband. If I ever got them he -had lost them first. Therefore, I protest against being called immoral.” - -“If you want to go into the question of moral ethics,” said Cryder, “you -cannot plead guiltless altogether of immorality. In openly living with a -woman who is not your wife you outrage the conventions of the community -and set it a bad example. It may be argued that you do less harm than -those who pursue the sort of life you let alone; but the _positive_ harm -is there.” - -All looked at Quintard, wondering how he would reply. Even Hermia felt -that he was driven into a corner. - -“The question is,” replied Quintard, slowly, “What is morality? The -world has many standards, from that of the English Government to that of -the African barbarian, who follows his instincts, yet who, curiously -enough, is in all respects more of a villain than his artificial -brother. That point, however, we will not discuss. A man’s standard, of -course, is determined by the community in which he lives. We will -consider him first in relation to himself. Man is given a temperament -which varies chiefly according to his physical strength, and tastes -which are distinctly individual. And he not only is a different man -after the experiences of each successive decade, but he frequently waits -long for the only woman for whom he is capable of feeling that peculiar -and overwhelming quality of love which demands that he shall make her -his wife. But in the mean time he cannot go altogether companionless, -and he meets many women with whom life is by no means unennobling. As to -the community, I deny that he sets it a bad example. It is a wiser, more -educating, and more refined life than insensate love-making to every -pretty weak woman who comes along, or than associations which degrade a -man’s higher nature and give him not a grain of food for thought. If -more men, until ready to marry, spent their lives in the manner which I -have endeavored to defend, there would be less weariness of life, less -drinking, less excess, less vice of all sorts.” - -Miss Starbruck shuddered, but felt that the conversation had gone out of -her depth, and made no reply. Hermia looked at Quintard with a feeling -of unconscious pride. Until he finished speaking, she did not realize -how she would hate to have him beaten. - -Cryder rose and began walking up and down the room. “When you argue,” he -said fretfully, “I always feel as if you were hammering me about my -ears. You have such a way of pounding through a discussion! One never -knows until the next day whether you are right or whether you have -simply overwhelmed one by the force of your vitality. Personally, -however, I do not agree with you, and for the same reason that I would -never marry; I dislike responsibilities.” - -Quintard gave him a glance of contempt, under which Hermia shrank as if -a lash had cut her shoulders; but before he could reply Helen rushed to -the front. “And all this discussion has come out of my poor little bid -for sympathy and advice!” she cried. “You have frightened me to death! I -am afraid of the very word matrimony with all your analysis and -philosophy. To me it was a simple proposition: ‘Marry and chaperon; -don’t marry, and be chaperoned.’ Now I feel that, if a man proposes to -me, I must read Darwin and Spencer before I answer. I refuse to listen -to another word. Mrs. Dykman, I am going home; let me drive you over.” - -They all went in a few moments, and Hermia was left alone with her -reflections. - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XXVIII. - - - TWO HISTORIES ARE ALMOST FINISHED. - -Hermia saw a great deal of Quintard. They walked together, they rode -together, and circumstances frequently forced them into each other’s -society for hours at a time. She liked him more with every interview, -but she did not feel a throb of love for him. The snow on her nature’s -volcano was deep as the ashes which buried Pompeii. - -He had many opportunities to put his wearing qualities to the test. Once -they met at a fashionable winter rendezvous in the country. The other -women were of the Helen Simms type; the rest of the men belonged to the -Winston brotherhood. For the greater part of four days Hermia and -Quintard devoted themselves exclusively to each other. When they were -not riding across the country or rambling through the windy woods, they -sat in the library and told stories by the fire. - -One day they had wandered far into the woods and come upon a hemlock -glen, down one side of which tumbled melting snow over great jutting -rocks that sprang from the mountain side. Quintard and Hermia climbed to -a ledge that overhung one of the rocky platforms and sat down. About and -above them rose the forest, but the wind was quiet; there was no sound -but the dull roar of the cataract. A more romantic spot was not in -America, but Quintard could not have been more matter-of-fact had he -been in a street-car. He had never betrayed any feeling he may have had -for her by a flash of his eye. He discussed with her subjects dangerous -and tender, but always with the cold control of the impersonal analyst. - -He smoked for a few moments in silence and then said abruptly: “Don’t -imagine that I am going to discuss religion with you; it is a question -which does not interest me at all. But do you believe in the immortality -of the soul?” - -“No,” said Hermia. - -“Why not?” - -Hermia lifted her shoulders: “I have never thought agnosticism needed -defense.” - -“Agnosticism is the religion of the intellectual, of course. But I have -some private reasons for going a step beyond agnosticism, and believing -in the persistence of personality. Do you want to hear them?” - -“Yes,” said Hermia, “but it all comes down to the same proposition. -Religion has its stronghold in Ego the Great. _La vie, c’est moi!_ I am, -therefore must ever be! Now and forever! World without end!” - -“I refuse to be snubbed beforehand. Why are children so frequently the -ancestors of their family’s talent? When heredity cannot account for -genius, what better explanation than that of the re-embodiment of an -unquenchable individuality? The second reason is a more sentimental one. -Why is a man never satisfied until he meets the woman he really loves, -and why are his instincts so keen and sure when he does meet her? Why, -also, does he so often dwell with the ideal of her before he sees her in -material form?” - -Hermia felt herself paling, but she exclaimed impatiently: “Don’t talk -to me of ideals—those poor, pale photographs of ourselves, who have -neither mind nor will nor impulse; who jump out like puppets as the -strings are pulled; who respond to every mood and grin to every smile! -They are born of the supreme egoism of human nature, which admits no -objective influence to any world of its own creating—an egoism which -demands vengeance for the humiliation of spirit one is called upon to -endure in the world of men. Your other arguments were good, however. I -like them, although I will not discuss them until you have further -elaborated. In the mean time solve another problem. What is the reason -that, when a woman falls in love, she immediately, if a believer, has an -increase of religious feeling; if a non-believer, she has a desire to -believe, so that she may pray? Sentimentality? The softening of her -nature under the influence of love? The general awakening of her -emotional possibilities?” - -“Neither—or all, indirectly. She is not drawn to God in the least. She -is drawn to the idealized abstraction of her lover, who, in the mists of -her white-heated imagination, assumes the lineaments of the being most -exalted by tradition. If there were a being more exalted still than God, -her lover’s phantom would be re-christened with his name instead. It is -to her lover that she prays—the intermediate being is a pretty -fiction—and she revels in prayer, because it gives her a dreamy and -sensuous nearness to her lover.” - -Hermia sprang to her feet and paced the narrow platform with rapid -steps. “It is well I have no ‘pretty fictions,’” she said, “you would -shatter them to splinters.” - -He rose also. “No,” he said, “I would never shatter any of your ideals. -Such as you believe in and I do not, I will never discuss with you.” - -Hermia stood still and looked away from him and through the hemlock -forest, with its life outstretched above and its death rotting below. -The shadows were creeping about it like ghosts of the dead bracken -beneath their feet. The mist was rolling over the mountain and down the -cataract; it lay like a soft, thin blanket on the hurrying waters. -Hermia drew closer to Quintard and looked up into his face. - -“Do you believe,” she said, “that perfect happiness can be—even when -affinities meet?” - -“Not perfect, because not uninterrupted,” he replied, “except in those -rare cases where a man and woman, born for each other, have met early in -youth, before thought or experience had formed the character of either. -When—as almost always happens—they do not meet until each is incased -in the armor of their separate and perfected individualities, no matter -how united they may become, there must be hours and days of terrible -spiritual loneliness—there must be certain sides of their natures that -can never touch. But”—he bent his flushed face to hers and his voice -shook—“there are moments—there are hours—when barriers are of mist, -when duality is forgotten. Such hours, isolated from time and the -world——” - -She broke from him as from an invisible embrace and stood on the edge of -a rock. She gave a little, rippling laugh that was caught and lost in -the rush and thunder of the waters. “Your theories are fascinating,” she -cried, “but this unknown cataract is more so. I should like to stand -here for an hour and watch it, were not these rocks so slippery——” - -Quintard turned his head. Then he leaped down the path beneath the -ledge. Hermia had disappeared. He was about to swing himself out into -the cataract when he staggered and leaned against the rock; his heart -contracted as if there were fingers of steel about it. With a mighty -resolution, he overcame the physical weakness which followed in the wake -of the momentary pain, and, planting his feet on one of the broad stones -over which the torrent fell, he set his shoulder against a projecting -rock and looked upward. Hermia lay on a shelf above; the force of the -cataract was feebler at its edges and had not swept her down. Quintard -crawled slowly up, his feet slipping on the slimy rocks, only saving -himself from being precipitated into the narrowing body of the torrent -below by clinging to the roots and branches that projected from the -ledges. He reached Hermia; she was unconscious, and it was well that he -was a strong man. He took her in his arms and went down the rocks. When -he stepped on to the earth again his face was white, and he breathed -heavily. “My heart beats as if I were a woman,” he muttered impatiently, -“what is the matter with me?” - -He laid Hermia on the ground, and for a moment was compelled to rest -beside her. Then he aroused himself and bent anxiously over her. She had -had a severe fall; it was a wonder her brains had not been dashed out. -He lifted her and held her with her body sloping from feet to head. She -struggled to consciousness with an agonized gasp. She opened her eyes, -but did not appear to see him, and, turning her face to the torrent, -made a movement to crawl to it. Quintard caught her in his arms and -stood her on her feet. - -“What are you doing?” he asked roughly. - -She put her hand to her head. “I like to watch it, but the rocks are so -slippery,” she said confusedly, yet with a gleam of cunning in her -shadowed eyes. - -Quintard caught her by both shoulders and shook her. “My God!” he -exclaimed, “did you do it purposely?” - -The blood rushed to her head and washed the fog from her brain. “You are -crazy,” she said; “let us go home.” - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XXIX. - - - AN EPOCH-MAKING DEPARTURE. - -A woman never moralizes until she has committed an immoral act. From the -moment she voluntarily accepts it until the moment she casts it aside, -she may do distasteful duty to the letter, but she does it mechanically. -The laws and canons are laid down, and she follows them without -analysis, however rebelliously. She may long for the forbidden as -consistently as she accepts her yoke, whether the yoke be of untempted -girlhood or hated matrimony; but the longing serves to deepen her -antipathy to bonds; she sees no beauty in average conditions. After she -has plucked the apple and eaten it raw, skin, core and all, and is -suffering from the indigestion thereof, she is enabled to analytically -compare it with such fruits as do not induce dyspepsia. - -Although Hermia was far from acknowledging that she loved Quintard, she -allowed him occasionally to reign in her imagination, and had more than -one involuntary, abstract, but tender interview with him. This, she -assured herself, was purely speculative, and in the way of objective -amusement, like the theater or the opera. When she found that she -thought of him always as her husband she made no protest; he was too -good for anything less. Nor, she decided, had she met him earlier and -been able to love him, would she have been content with any more -imperfect union. - -Cryder still came with more or less regularity. There were brief, -frantic moments, as when she had sought death in the torrent; but on the -whole she was too indifferent to break with him. Her life was already -ruined; what mattered her actions? Moreover, habit is a tremendous -force, and he had a certain hold over her, a certain fascination, with -which the physical had nothing to do. - -After she had known Quintard about two months she found herself free. -Cryder, in truth, was quite as tired as herself. Ennui was in his -tideless veins, and, moreover, the time had come to add another flower -to his herbarium. But he did not wish to break with Hermia until his -time came to leave the city. If she had loved him, it might have been -worth while to hurt her; but, as even his egoism could not persuade him -that she gave him more than temperate affection, he would not risk the -humiliation of being laughed at. - -One evening he told her that he must go South the following week and -remain several months. His dialect was growing rusty, and the public -would expect another novel from him in the coming spring. He hated to -say good-bye to her, but his muse claimed his first and highest duty. -Hermia felt as one who comes out of a room full of smoke—she wanted to -draw a long breath and throw back her head. She replied very politely, -however—they were always very polite—that she should miss him and look -forward to his return. Neither would avow that this was the end of the -matter, but each was devoutly thankful that the other was not a fool. - -Cryder looked melancholy and handsome when he came to say good-bye. He -had on extremely becoming traveling clothes, and his skin and eyes had -their accustomed clearness. He bade Hermia a tender farewell, and his -eyes looked resigned and sad. Then an abstracted gaze passed into them, -as if his spirit had floated upward to a plane far removed from common -affection. - -Hermia had much ado to keep her mouth from curling. She remembered what -Quintard had once said of him: that he always wanted to throw him on a -table to see if he would ring. Bah! what a _poseur_ he was! Then she -mentally shrugged her shoulders. His egoism had its value; he had never -noticed the friendship which existed between her and Quintard. Had he -been a jealous man he would have been insufferable. - -After he had gone he seemed to glide out of her life—out of the past as -of the present. She found herself barely able to recall him, his -features, his characteristics. For a long time she never thought of him -unless some one mentioned his name, and then she wondered if he had not -been the hero of a written sketch rather than of an actual episode. - -Whether it was owing to Cryder’s removal or to Quintard’s influence, she -could not tell, but she found herself becoming less blasé. Her spirits -were lighter, people interested her more, life seemed less prosaic. She -asked Quintard once what it meant, and he told her, with his usual -frankness, that it was the spring. This offended her, and she did not -speak for ten minutes. - -On another occasion he roused her to wrath. He told her one day that on -the night he met her he had been impressed with a sense of unreality -about her; and, acting on a sudden impulse, she told him the history of -her starved and beautiless girlhood. When she finished she expected many -comments, but Quintard merely put another log of wood on the fire and -remarked: - -“That is all very interesting, but I am warned that the dinner-hour -approaches. Farewell, I will see you at Mrs. Dykman’s this evening.” - -Hermia looked at the fire for some time after he had gone. She was -thankful that fate had arranged matters in such wise that she was not to -spend her life with Quintard. He could be, at times, the most -disagreeable man she had ever known, and there was not a grain of -sympathy in his nature. And, yes, he _was_ prosaic! - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XXX. - - - THROUGH THE SNOW. - -Two days later Hermia went to a large dinner, and Quintard took her in. -She was moody and absent. She felt nervous, she said, and he need not be -surprised if he found her very cross. Quintard told her to be as cross -as she liked. He had his reasons for encouraging her in her moods. After -the dinner was over she wandered through the rooms like a restless -ghost. Finally she turned abruptly to Quintard. “Take me home,” she -said; “I shall stifle if I stay in this house any longer. It is like a -hot-house.” - -“But what will Mrs. Dykman say?” - -“I do not care what she says. She is not ready to go, and I won’t stay -any longer. I will go without saying anything to her about it.” - -“Very well. There will be comment, but I will see if they have a -telephone and order a cab.” - -“I won’t go in a cab. I want to walk.” - -“But it is snowing.” - -“I like to walk in the snow.” - -Quintard thought it best to let her have her way. Moreover, a walk -through the snow with her would be a very pleasant thing. He hunted up a -housemaid and borrowed a pair of high overshoes. Hermia had on a short -gown; she pulled the fur-lined hood of her long wrap about her head, -Quintard put on the overshoes, and they managed to get out of the house -unnoticed. The snow was falling, but the wind lingered afar on the -borders of the storm. - -“You had better let me call a cab.” - -“I will _not_ drive,” replied Hermia; and Quintard shrugged his -shoulders and offered his arm. - -The walk was not a long one under ordinary circumstances; the house at -which the dinner had been given was in Gramercy Park; but, with a -slippery pavement and snow-stars in one’s eyes, each block is a mile. -Quintard had an umbrella, but Hermia would not let him raise it. She -liked to throw back her head and watch the snow in its tumbling, -scurrying, silent fall. It lay deep in the long, narrow street, and it -blotted out the tall, stern houses with a merry, baffling curtain of -wee, white storm-imps. Now and again a cab flashed its lantern like a -will-o’-the-wisp. - -Hermia made Quintard stop under one of the electric lamps. It poured its -steady beams through the storm for a mile and more, and in it danced the -sparkling crystals in infinite variety of form and motion. About the -pathway pressed the soft, unlustrous army, jealous of their transformed -comrades, like stars that sigh to spring from the crowded milky way. -Down that luminous road hurried the tiny radiant shapes, like coming -souls to the great city, hungry for life. - -Hermia clung to Quintard, her eyes shining out of the dark. - -“Summer and the country have nothing so beautiful as this,” she -whispered. “I feel as if we were on a deserted planet, and of hateful -modern life there was none. I cannot see a house.” - -“I see several,” said Quintard. - -Hermia gave a little exclamation of disgust, but struggled onward. -“Sometimes I hate you,” she said. “You never respond to my moods.” - -“Oh, yes, I do—to your real moods. You often think you are sentimental, -when, should I take you up, you would find me a bore and change the -subject. You will get sentimental enough some day, but you are not ready -for it yet.” - -“Yes? You still cling to that ridiculous idea that I shall some day fall -in love, I suppose.” - -“I do. And how you will go to pieces.” - -“That is purest nonsense. I wish it were not.” - -“Have you got that far? But we will not argue the matter. Your mood -to-night, as I suggested before, is not a sentimental one. You are -extremely cross. I don’t know but I like that better. It would be hard -for me to be sentimental in the streets of New York.” - -Hermia rather liked being bullied by him at times. But if she could only -shake that effortless self-control! - -They walked a block in silence. “Are you very susceptible to beauty?” -she asked suddenly. - -Quintard laughed. “I am afraid I am. Still, I will do myself the justice -to say that it has no power to hold me if there is nothing else. Beauty -by itself is a poor thing; combined with several other -things—intellect, soul, passion—it becomes one of the sweetest and -most powerful aids to communion.” - -“Why do you think so much of passion?” she demanded. “You haven’t any -yourself.” - -They passed under a lamp at the moment, and a ray of light fell on -Quintard’s face, to which Hermia had lifted her eyes. The color sprang -to it, and his eyes flashed. He bent his head until she shrank under the -strong, angry magnetism of his gaze. “It is time you opened your eyes,” -he said harshly, “and learned to know one man from another. And it is -time you began to realize what you have to expect.” He bent his face a -little closer. “It will not frighten you, though,” he said. And then he -raised his head and carefully piloted her across the street. - -Hermia made no reply. She opened her lips as if her lungs needed more -air. Something was humming in her head; she could not think. She looked -up through a light-path into the dark, piling billows of the vaporous, -storm-writhed ocean. Then she caught Quintard’s arm as if she were on an -eminence and afraid of falling. - -“Are you cold?” he asked, drawing her closer. - -“Yes,” said Hermia. “I wish we were home. How thick the snow is! Things -are in my eyes.” - -Quintard stopped and brushed the little crystals off her lashes. Then -they went on, slipping sometimes, but never falling. Quintard was very -sure-footed. The snow covered them with a garment like soft white fur, -the darkness deepened, and neither made further attempt at conversation. -Quintard had all he could do to keep his bearings, and began to wish -that he had not let Hermia have her way; but she trudged along beside -him with a blind sort of confidence new to her. - -After a time he gave an exclamation of relief. “We are within a couple -of blocks of your house,” he said. “We shall soon be home. Be -careful—the crossing is very slip——. Ah!” - -She had stepped off the curbstone too quickly, her foot slipped, and she -made a wild slide forward, dragging Quintard with her. He threw his arm -around her, and caught his balance on the wing. In a second he was -squarely planted on both feet, but he did not release Hermia. He wound -his arms about her, pressing her closer, closer, his breath coming -quickly. The ice-burdened storm might have been the hot blast of a -furnace. He did not kiss her, his lips were frozen; but her hood had -fallen back and he pressed his face into the fragrant gold of her hair. - -He loosened his hold suddenly, and, drawing her arm through his, hurried -through the street. They were at Hermia’s door in a few moments, and -when the butler opened it she turned to him hesitatingly. - -“You will come in and get warm, and ring for a cab?” she asked. - -“Yes,” he said, “I will go in for a moment.” - -They went into the library, and Quintard lit all the burners. He touched -a bell and told the butler to bring some sherry and call a cab. - -When the sherry came he drank a glass with her, and entertained her -until the cab arrived, with an account of a wild storm in which he had -once found himself on the mountains of Colorado. When the bell rang she -stood up and held out her hand with a smile. - -“Good-luck to you,” she said. “I hope you will get home before morning.” - -He took her hand, then dropped it and put both his own about her face, -his wrists meeting under her chin. “Good-night,” he said softly. “Go to -those sovereign domains of yours, where the castles are built of the -clouds of sunset, and the sea thunders with longing and love and pain of -desire. I have been with you there always; I always shall be;” and then -he let his hands fall, and went quickly from the room. - -Hermia waited until the front door had closed, and then she ran up to -her room as if hobgoblins were in pursuit. - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XXXI. - - - THE DYKMAN REPRIMAND. - -While Hermia was sitting in the library the next day in a very -unenviable frame of mind, the door opened and Mrs. Dykman came in. - -“Hermia,” she said, after she had disposed herself on one of the severe, -high-backed chairs, “it is quite time for you to adopt some slight -regard for the conventionalities. You are wealthy, and strong in your -family name; but there is a limit. The world is not a thing you can hold -in the hollow of your hand or crush under your foot. The manner in which -you left Mrs. Le Roy’s house last night was scandalous. What do you -suppose the consequences will be?” Her cold, even tones never varied, -but they had the ice-breath of the Arctic in them. - -“Are people talking?” asked Hermia. - -“Talking? They are shrieking! It is to be hoped, for your own sake, that -you are going to marry Grettan Quintard, and that you will let me -announce the engagement at once.” - -Hermia sprang to her feet, overturning her chair. She had a book in her -hand, and she flung it across the room. Her eyes were blazing and her -face was livid. “Don’t ever dare mention that man’s name to me again!” -she cried. “I hate him! I hate him! And don’t bring me any more tales -about what people are saying. I don’t care what they say! I scorn them -all! What are they but a set of jibbering automatons? One year has made -me loathe the bloodless, pulseless, colorless, artificial thing you call -society. Those people whose names and position each bows down to in the -other are not human beings! they are but a handful of fungi on the great -plant of humanity! If they were wrenched from their roots and crushed -out of life to-morrow, their poor, little, miserable, self-satisfied -numbers would not be missed. Of what value are they in the scheme of -existence save to fatten and puff in the shade of a real world like the -mushroom and the toadstool under an oak? They are not _alive_ like the -great world of real men; not one of them ever had a strong, real, -healthy, animal impulse in his life. Even their little sins are -artificial, and owe their faint, evanescent promptings to vanity or -ennui. I hate their wretched little aims and ambitions, their well-bred -scuffling for power in the eyes of each other—_power_—Heaven save the -mark! They work as hard, those poor midgets, for recognition among the -few hundred people who have ever heard of them, as a statesman does for -the admiration of his country! And yet if the whole tribe were melted -down into one soul they would not make an ambition big enough to carry -its result to the next generation. A year and I shall have forgotten -every name on my visiting-list. Great God! that you should think I care -for them.” - -Mrs. Dykman rose to her feet and drew her furs about her. “I do not -pretend to understand you,” she said. “Fortunately for myself, my lot -has been cast among ordinary women. And as I am a part of the world for -which you have so magnificent a contempt, one of the midgets for whom -you have so fine a scorn, I imagine you will care to see as little of me -in the future as I of you.” - -She was walking majestically down the room when Hermia sprang forward, -and, throwing her arms about her, burst into a storm of tears. “Oh, -don’t be angry with me!” she cried. “Don’t! Don’t! I am so miserable -that I don’t know what I am saying. I believe I am half crazy.” - -Mrs. Dykman drew her down on a sofa. “What is the trouble?” she asked. -“Tell me.” - -“There is nothing in particular,” said Hermia. “I am just unstrung. I -feel like a raft in the middle of an ocean. I am disgusted with life. It -must be because I am not well. I am sure that is it. There is nothing -else. Oh, Aunt Frances, take me to Europe.” - -“Very well,” said Mrs. Dykman; “we will go if you think that traveling -will cure you. But I cannot go for at least five weeks. Will that do?” - -“Yes,” said Hermia; “I suppose it will have to.” - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XXXII. - - - FUTURITY. - -A few days later Hermia had a singular experience. Bessie’s youngest -child, her only boy, died. Hermia carried her sister from the room as -the boy breathed his last, and laid her on a bed. As Bessie lay sobbing -and moaning, sometimes wailing aloud, she seemed suddenly to fade from -her sister’s vision. Hermia was alone, where she could not tell, in a -room whose lineaments were too shadowy to define. Even her own outlines, -seen as in a mirror held above, were blurred. Of one thing only was she -sharply conscious: she was writhing in mortal agony—agony not of the -body, but of the spirit. The cause she did not grasp, but the effect was -a suffering as exquisite and as torturing as that of vitriol poured upon -bare nerves. The insight lasted only a few seconds, but it was so real -that she almost screamed aloud. Then she drifted back to the present and -bent over her sister. But her face was white. In that brief interval her -inner vision had pierced the depths of her nature, and what it saw there -made her shudder. - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XXXIII. - - - CHAOS. - -She began to hate Cryder with a mortal hatred. When he left her he had -flown down the perspective of her past, but now he seemed to be crawling -back—nearer—nearer— - -Had it not been for him she might have loved Quintard. But he had -scraped the gloss from life. He had made love commonplace, vulgar. She -felt a sort of moral nausea whenever she thought of love. What an ideal -would love have been with Quintard in this house! There was a barbaric, -almost savage element in his nature which made him seem a part of these -rooms and of that Indian wilderness. - -And every nook and corner was eloquent of Cryder! Sometimes she thought -she would take another house. But she asked herself: Of what use? She -had nothing left to give Quintard, and her house was his delight. She no -longer pretended to analyze herself or to speculate on the future. Once, -when sitting alone by Bessie’s bed in the night, she had opened the door -of her mental photograph gallery and glanced down the room to that -great, bare plate at the end. It was bare no longer. On its surface was -an impression—what, she did not pause to ascertain. She shut the door -hurriedly and turned the key. - -At times all the evil in her nature was dominant. She dreaded hearing -Quintard speak the word which would thrust her face to face with her -future; but the temptation was strong to see the lightning flash in his -eyes, to shake his silence as a rock shakes above the quivering earth. -And Quintard kept his control because he saw that she was trying to -tempt him, and he determined that he would not yield an inch until he -was ready. - - * * * * * - -She made up her mind to go away from all memory of Cryder and live on -some Mediterranean island with Quintard. She was not fit to be any man’s -wife, and life could never be what it might have been; but at least she -would have him, and she could not live without him. There were softer -moments, when she felt poignant regret for the mistake of her past, when -she had brief, fleeting longings for a higher life of duty, and of a -love that was something more than intellectual companionship and -possession. - -Quintard’s book came out and aroused a hot dispute. He was accused of -coarseness and immorality on the one side, and granted originality and -vigor on the other. The ultra-conservative faction refused him a place -in American literature. The radical and advanced wing said that American -literature had some blood in its veins at last. Hermia took all the -papers, and a day seldom passed that Quintard’s name, either in -execration or commendation, did not meet her eyes. The derogatory -articles cut her to the quick or aroused her to fury; and the adulation -he received delighted her as keenly as if offered to herself. - -He was with her in his periods of elation and depression, and it was at -such times that the better part of her nature was stirred. He needed -her. She could give him that help and comfort and sympathy without which -his life would be barren. She knew that under the hard, outer crust of -her nature lay the stunted germs of self-abnegation and sacrifice, and -there were moments when she longed with all the ardor of her quickening -soul to give her life to this man’s happiness and good. Then the mood -would pass, and she would look back upon it with impatience. - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XXXIV. - - - LIFE FROM DEATH. - -Hermia was in bed one morning when her maid brought her the papers. She -opened one, then sat suddenly erect, and the paper shook in her hands. -She read the headlines through twice—details were needless. Then she -dropped the paper and fell back on the pillows. A train had gone over an -embankment in the South, and Ogden Cryder’s name was in the list of -dead. - -She lay staring at the painted canopy of her bed. It seemed to her that -with Cryder’s life her past was annihilated, that the man took with him -every act and deed of which she had been a part. A curtain seemed to -roll down just behind her. A drama had been enacted, but it was over. -What had it been about? She had forgotten. She could recall nothing. -That curtain shut out every memory. - -She pressed her hands over her eyes. She was free! She could take up her -life from this hour and forget that any man had entered it but Grettan -Quintard. Cryder? Who was he? Had he ever lived? What did he look like? -She could not remember. She could recall but one face—a face which -should never be seen in this room. - -Though her mood was not a hard one, she felt no pity for Cryder. Love -had made every object in life insignificant but herself and her lover. - -She would marry Quintard. She would be all that in her better moments -she had dreamed of being—that and more. She had great capacity for good -in her; her respect and admiration for Quintard’s higher qualities had -taught her that. She threw up her arms and struck her open palms against -the bed’s head. And how she loved him! What exultation in the thought of -her power to give him happiness! - -For a few days Quintard felt as if he were walking on the edge of a -crater. The hardness in her nature seemed to have melted and gone. The -defiant, almost cynical look had left her eyes; they were dreamy, almost -appealing. She made no further effort to tempt him, but he had a weird -feeling that if he touched her he would receive an electric shock. He -did not suspect the cause of the sudden change, nor did he care to know. -It was enough that it was. - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XXXV. - - - IDEALS RESTORED. - -They were sitting together one evening in the jungle. The night was hot -and the windows were open, but the curtains were drawn. The lamps were -hidden behind the palms, and the room was full of mellow light. Hermia -sat on a bank of soft, green cushions, and Quintard lay beside her. -Hermia wore a loose gown of pale-green mull, that fell straight from her -bosom’s immovable swell, and her neck and arms were bare. She had -clasped her hands about her knee and was leaning slightly forward. -Beside her was a heavy mass of foliage, and against it shone her hair -and the polished whiteness of her skin. - -“Now that you are famous, and your book has been discussed threadbare, -what are you going to do next?” she asked him. - -“I want to write some romances about the princely houses of India—of -that period which immediately antedates the invasion of the East India -Company. I spent a year in northern and western India, and collected a -quantity of material. We know little of the picturesque side of India -outside of Macaulay, Crawford, and Edwin Arnold, and it is immensely -fertile in romance and anecdote. There never were such love-affairs, -such daring intrigues, such tragedies! And the setting! It would take -twenty vocabularies to do it justice; but it is gratifying to find a -setting upon which one vocabulary has not been twenty times exhausted. -And then I have half promised Mrs. Trennor-Secor to dramatize Rossetti’s -‘Rose Mary’ for her. She wants to use it at Newport this summer, or -rather, she wanted something, and I suggested that. I have always -intended to do it. But I feel little in the humor for writing at -present, to tell you the truth.” - -He stopped abruptly, and Hermia clasped her hands more tightly about her -knee. “What are your plans for ‘Rose Mary’?” she asked. “I hope you will -have five or six voices sing the Beryl songs behind the altar. The -effect would be weird and most impressive.” - -“That is a good idea,” said Quintard. “How many ideas you have given -me!” - -“Tell me your general plan,” she said quickly. - -He sketched it to her, and she questioned him at length, nervously -keeping him on the subject as long as she could. The atmosphere seemed -charged; they would never get through this evening in safety! If he -retained his self-control, she felt that she should lose hers. - -She pressed her face down against her knee, and his words began to reach -her consciousness with the indistinctness of words that come through -ears that are the outposts of a dreaming brain. When he finished he sat -suddenly upright, and for a few moments uttered no word. He sat close -beside her, almost touching her, and Hermia felt as if her veins’ rivers -had emptied their cataracts into her ears. Her nerves were humming in a -vast choir. She made a rigid attempt at self-control, and the effort -made her tremble. Quintard threw himself forward, and putting his hand -to her throat forced back her head. Her face was white, but her lips -were burning. Quintard pressed his mouth to hers—and Hermia took her -ideals to her heart once more. - -Time passed and the present returned to them. He spoke his first word. -“We will be married before the week is out. Promise.” - -He left her suddenly, and Hermia sank back and down amidst the cushions. -Once or twice she moved impatiently. Why was he not with her? The -languor in her veins grew heavier and wrapped her about as in a -covering. She slept. - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XXXVI. - - - AN AWAKENING. - -When Hermia awoke there was a rattle of wagons in the street, and the -dawn struggled through the curtains. There was a chill in the air and -she shivered a little. She lay recalling the events of the night. -Suddenly she sat upright and cast about her a furtive glance of horror. -Then she sat still and her teeth chattered. - -Cryder’s face looked at her from behind every palm! It grinned mockingly -down from every tree! It sprang from the cushions and pressed itself -close to her cheek! The room was _peopled_ with Cryder! - -She sprang to her feet and threw her arms above her head. “O God!” she -cried; “it was but for a night! for a night!” - -She fled down the room, Cryder, in augmenting swarm, pursuing her. She -flew up the stairs and into her room, and there flung herself on the -floor in such mortal agony as she could never know again, because the -senses must be blunted ever after. Last night, in Quintard’s arms, as -heaven’s lightning flashed through her heart, every avenue in it had -been rent wide. The great mystery of life had poured through, flooding -them with light, throwing into cloudless relief the glorious heights and -the muttering depths. Last night she had dwelt on the heights, and in -that starry ether had given no glance to the yawning pits below. But -sleep had come; she had slid gently, unwittingly down; she had awakened -to find herself writhing on the sharp, jutting rocks of a rayless -cavern, on whose roof of sunset gold she had rambled for days and weeks -with a security which had in it the blindness of infatuation. - -She marry Quintard and live with him as the woman he loved and honored -above all women! She try to scale those heights where was to be garnered -something better worth offering her lover than any stores in her own -sterile soul! That hideous, ineffaceable brand seemed scorching her -breast with letters of fire. If she had but half loved Cryder—but she -had not loved him for a moment. With her right hand she had cast the -veil over her eyes; with her left, she had fought away all promptings -that would have rent the veil in twain. Every moment, from beginning to -awakening, she had shut her ears to the voice which would have whispered -that her love was a deliberate delusion, created and developed by her -will. No! she had no excuse. She was a woman of brains; there was no -truth she might not have grasped had she chosen to turn her eyes and -face it. - -She flung her arms over her head, grasping the fringes of the rug, and -twisting them into a shapeless mass. She moaned aloud in quick, short, -unconscious throbs of sound. She was five-and-twenty, and life was over. -She had wandered through long years in a wilderness as desolate as -night, and she had reached the gates of the city to find them shut. They -had opened for a moment and she had stood within them; then a hand had -flung her backward, and the great, golden portals had rushed together -with an impetus which welded them for all time. She made no excuses for -herself; she hurled no anathemas against fate. Her intellect had been -given to her to save her from the mistakes of foolish humanity, a lamp -to keep her out of the mud. She had shaded the lamp and gone down into -the mire. She had known by experience and by thought that no act of -man’s life passed without a scar; that the scars knit together and -formed the separate, indestructible constituent fibers of his character. -And each fiber influenced eternally the structure as a whole. She had -known this, and yet, without a glance into the future, without a stray -thought tossed to issues, she had burnt herself as indifferently as a -woman who has nothing to lose. It was true that great atonement was in -her power, that in a life’s reach of love and duty the scar would fade. -But that was not in the question. With such tragic natures there is no -medium. She could not see a year in the future that would not be haunted -with memories and regrets; an hour when that scar would not burn. - -If life could not be perfect, she would have nothing less. She had dealt -her cards, she would accept the result. She had had it in her to enjoy a -happiness possible only to women of her intellect and temperament. She -had deliberately put happiness out of her life, and there could be but -one end to the matter. - -She sprang to her feet. She had no tears, but it seemed as if something -had its teeth at her vitals and was tearing them as a tiger tears its -victim. She walked aimlessly up and down the room until exhausted, then -went mechanically to bed. - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XXXVII. - - - THE DOCTRINE OF THE INEVITABLE. - -Late in the day her maid awoke her and said that Mrs. Dykman was -down-stairs. - -Hermia hesitated; then she bade the girl bring the visitor up to her -boudoir. It was as well for several reasons that Mrs. Dykman should -know. - -She thrust her feet into a pair of night-slippers, drew a dressing-gown -about her, and went into the next room. Mrs. Dykman, as she entered a -moment later, raised her level brows. - -“Hermia!” she said, “what is the matter?” - -Hermia glanced at herself in the mirror. She shuddered a little at her -reflection. “Several things,” she said, briefly. “Sit down.” - -Mrs. Dykman, with an extremely uncomfortable sensation, took a chair. On -the occasion of her first long conversation with Hermia she had made up -her mind that her new-found relative would one day electrify the world -by some act which her family would strive to forget. How she wished -Hermia had been cast in that world’s conventional mold! It had come! She -was convinced of that, as she looked at Hermia’s face. What _had_ she -done? - -“I have something to tell you,” said Hermia; and then she stopped. - -“Well?” - -Mrs. Dykman uttered only one word; but before that calm, impassive -expectancy there was no retreat. She looked as immovable, yet as -compelling, as a sphinx. - -Hermia told her story to the end. At so low an ebb was her vitality that -not a throb of excitement was in her voice. - -When she had finished, Mrs. Dykman drew a breath of relief. It was all -very terrible, of course, but she had felt an indefinable dread of -something worse. She knew with whom she had to deal, however, and -decided upon her line of argument without the loss of a moment. For -Hermia to allow any barrier to stand between herself and Quintard was -ridiculous. - -“It is a very unfortunate thing,” she said, in a tone intended to -impress Hermia with its lack of horror; “but has it occurred to you that -it could not be helped?” - -“What do you mean?” - -“Do you remember that for more years than you can count you nursed and -trained and hugged the idea of an adventurous love-affair? The moment -you got the necessary conditions you thought of nothing but of realizing -your dream. To have changed your ideas would have involved the changing -of your whole nature. The act was as inevitable as any minor act in life -which is the direct result of the act which preceded it. You could no -more have helped having an intrigue than you could help having typhoid -fever if your system were in the necessary condition. I think that is a -logical statement of the matter.” - -“I do not deny it,” said Hermia indifferently; “but why was I so blind -as to mistake the wrong man for the right?” - -“The men of your imagination were so far above reality that all men you -met were a disappointment. Cryder was the first who had any of the -qualities you demanded. And there was much about Cryder to please; he -was one of the most charming men I ever met. You found it delightful to -be with a man who, you thought, understood you, and whose mind was equal -to your own. You were lonely, too—you wanted a companion. If Quintard -had come first, there would have been no question of mistake; but, as -the case stands, it was perfectly natural for you to imagine yourself in -love with Cryder.” - -Hermia turned her head listlessly against the back of the chair and -stared at the wall. It was all true; but what difference did it make? - -Mrs. Dykman went on: “Moreover—although it is difficult for you to -accept such a truth in your present frame of mind—the affair did you -good, and your chances of happiness are greater than if you took into -matrimony neither experience nor the memory of mistakes. If you had met -Quintard first and married him, you would have carried with you through -life the regret that you had never realized your wayward dreams. You -would have continued to invest an intrigue with all the romance of your -imagination; now you know exactly how little there is in it. What is -more, you have learned something of the difference in men, and will be -able to appreciate a man like Quintard. You will realize how few men -there are in the world who satisfy all the wants of a woman’s nature. -There is no effect in a picture without both light and shade. The life -you will have with Quintard will be the more complete and beautiful by -its contrast to the emptiness and baldness of your attempt with Cryder.” - -Hermia placed her elbows on her knees and pressed her hands against her -face. “You are appealing to my intellect,” she said; “and what you say -is very clever, and worthy of you. But, if I had met Quintard in time, -he would have dispelled all my false illusions and made me more than -content with what he offered in return. No, I have made a horrible -mistake, and no logic will help me.” - -“But look at another side of the question. You have given yourself to -one man; Heaven knows how many love affairs Grettan Quintard has had. -You know this; you heard him acknowledge it in so many words. And yet -you find no fault with him. Why, then, is your one indiscretion so much -greater than his many? Your life until you met Quintard was your own to -do with as it pleased you. If you chose to take the same privilege that -the social code allows to men, the relative sin is very small; about -positive right and wrong I do not pretend to know anything. With the -uneven standard of morality set up by the world and by religion, who -does? But relatively you are so much less guilty than Quintard that the -matter is hardly worth discussing. And, if he never discovers that you -give him less than he believes, it will not hurt him. When you are -older, you will have a less tender regard for men than you have to-day.” - -Hermia leaned back and sighed heavily. “Oh, it is not the abstract sin,” -she said. “It is that _it was_, and that _now_ I love.” - -“Hermia,” said Mrs. Dykman, sternly, “this is unworthy of a woman of -your brains and character. You have the strongest will of any woman I -have ever known; take your past by the throat and put it behind you. -Stifle it and forget it. You have the power, and you must surely have -the desire.” - -“No,” said Hermia, “I have neither the power nor the desire. That is the -one thing in my life beyond the control of my will.” - -“Then there is but one thing that will bring back your normal frame of -mind, and that is change. I will give you a summer in London and a -winter in Paris. I promise that at the end of that time you will marry -Quintard.” - -“Well,” said Hermia, listlessly, “I will think of it.” She was beginning -to wish her aunt would go. She had made her more disgusted with life -than ever. - -Mrs. Dykman divined that it was time to leave the girl alone, and rose. -She hesitated a moment and then placed her hand on Hermia’s shoulder. “I -have had every experience that life offers to women,” she said—and for -the first time in Hermia’s knowledge of her those even tones -deepened—“every tragedy, every comedy, every bitterness, every -joy—_everything_. Therefore, my advice has its worth. There is little -in life—make the most of that little when you find it. You are facing a -problem that more than one woman has faced before, and you will work it -out as other women have done. It was never intended that a life-time of -suffering should be the result of one mistake.” Then she gathered her -wraps about her and left the room. - -Shortly after, Hermia drove down to her lawyer’s office and made a will. -She left bequests to Helen Simms and Miss Newton, and divided the bulk -of her property between Bessie, Miss Starbruck, and Mrs. Dykman. - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XXXVIII. - - - BETWEEN DAY AND NIGHT. - -Hermia sat by the window waiting for Quintard. It was the saddest hour -of the day—that hour of dusk when the lamplighter trudges on his -rounds. How many women have sat in their darkening rooms at that hour -with their brows against the glass and watched their memories rise and -sing a dirge! Even a child—if it be a woman-child—is oppressed in that -shadow-haunted land between day and night, for the sadness of the future -is on her. It is the hour when souls in their strain feel that the -tension must snap; when tortured hearts send their cries through -forbidding brains. The sun has gone, the lamps are unlit, the shadows -lord and mock until they are blotted out under falling tears. - -Hermia rose suddenly and left the room. She went into the dining-room -and drank a glass of sherry. She wore a black gown, and her face was as -wan as the white-faced sky; but in a moment the wine brought color to -her lips and cheeks. Then she went into the jungle and lit the lamps. - -She was standing by one of the date-trees as Quintard entered. As he -came up to her he took her hand in both his own, but he did not kiss -her; he almost dreaded a renewal of last night’s excitement. Hermia, -moreover, was a woman whose moods must be respected; she did not look as -if she were ready to be kissed. - -“Are you ill?” he asked, with a tenderness in his voice which made her -set her teeth. “Your eyes are hollow. I am afraid you did not sleep. -I”—the dark color coming under his skin—“did not sleep either.” - -“I slept,” said Hermia—“a little; but I have a headache.” - -They went to the end of the room and sat down, she on the bank, he -opposite, on a seat made to represent a hollowed stump. - -They talked of many things, as lovers do in those intervals between the -end of one whirlwind and the half-feared, half-longed-for beginning of -another. He told her that the Poet’s Club, after a mighty battle which -had threatened disruption, had formally elected him a member. Word had -been sent to his rooms late in the afternoon. Then he told her that they -were to be married on Thursday, and to sail for Europe in the early -morning on his yacht. He spoke of the places they would visit, the old -cities he had loved to roam about alone, where idle talk would have -shattered the charm. And he would take her into the heart of nature and -teach her to forget that the world of men existed. And the sea—they -both loved the sea better than all. He would teach her how every ocean, -every river, every stream spoke a language of its own, and told legends -that put to shame those of forest and mountain, village and wilderness. -They would lie on the sands and listen to the deep, steady voice of the -ocean telling the secrets she carried in her stormy heart—secrets that -were safe save when some mortal tuned his ear to her tongue. He threw -back his head and quoted lingeringly from the divinest words that have -ever been written about the sea: - - “Mother of loves that are swift to fade, - Mother of mutable winds and hours, - A barren mother, a mother-maid, - Cold and clean as her faint, salt flowers. - I would we twain were even as she, - Lost in the night and the light of the sea, - Where faint sounds falter and wan beams wade, - Break and are broken, and shed into showers. - - * * * * * * * - - “O tender-hearted, O perfect lover, - Thy lips are bitter, and sweet thine heart. - The hopes that hurt and the dreams that hover, - Shall they not vanish away and apart? - But thou, thou art sure, thou art older than earth; - Thou art strong for death and fruitful of birth; - Thy depths conceal and thy gulfs discover; - From the first thou wert; in the end thou art.” - -Hermia leaned forward and pressed her hands into his. “Come!” she said. - -He dropped on the cushion beside her and caught her to him in an embrace -that hurt her; and under his kiss the coming hour was forgotten. - -After a time he pushed her back among the cushions and pressed his lips -to her throat. Suddenly he stood up. “I am going,” he said. “We will be -married at eight o’clock on Thursday night. I shall not see you until -then.” - -She stood up also. “Wait a moment,” she said, “I want to say something -to you before you go.” She looked at him steadily and said: “I was -everything to Ogden Cryder.” - -For a moment it seemed as if Quintard had not understood. He put out his -hand as if to ward off a blow, and looked at her almost inquiringly. - -“What did you say?” he muttered. - -“I tried to believe that I loved him, and failed. There is no excuse. I -knew I did not. I tell you this because I love you too well to give you -what you would have spurned had you known; and I tell you that you may -forget me the sooner.” - -Quintard understood. He crossed the short distance between them and -looked into her face. - -Hermia gave a rapturous cry. All that was brutal and savage in her -nature surged upward in response to the murderous passion in this man -who was bone of herself. Never had she been so at one with him; never -had she so worshiped him as in that moment when she thought he was going -to kill her. Then, like a flash, he left her. - - * * * * * - - - - - CHAPTER XXXIX. - - - THE REALIZATION OF IDEALS. - -She stood motionless for a few moments, then went up-stairs. As she -crossed the hall she saw that the front-door was open, but she was too -listless to close it. She went to her boudoir and sank into a chair. In -the next room was a bottle of potassium cyanide which she had brought up -from the butler’s pantry. It had been purchased to scour John Suydam’s -silver, which had the rust of generations on it. She would get it in a -few moments. She had a fancy to review her life before she ended it. All -those years before the last two—had they ever really existed? Had there -been a time when life had been before her? when circumstances had not -combined to push her steadily to her destruction? No temptations had -come to the plain, unattractive girl in the little Brooklyn flat. Though -every desire had been ungratified, still her life had been unspoiled, -and she had possessed a realm in which she had found perfect joy. Was it -possible that she and that girl were the same? She was twenty years -older and her life was over; that girl’s had not then begun. If she -could be back in that past for a few moments! If, for a little time, she -could blot out the present before she went into the future! She lifted -her head. In a drawer of her wardrobe was an old brown-serge dress. She -had kept it to look at occasionally, and with it assure, and reassure, -herself that the present was not a dream. She had a fancy to look for a -moment as she had looked in those days when all things were yet to be. - -She went into her bedroom and took out the dress. It was worn at the -seams and dowdy of cut. She put it on. She dipped her hair into a basin -of water, wrung it out, and twisted it in a tight knot at the back of -her head, leaving her forehead bare. Then she went back to the boudoir -and looked at herself in the glass. Yes, she was almost the same. The -gown did not meet, but it hung about her in clumsy folds; the water made -her hair lifeless and dull; and her skin was gray. Only her eyes were -not those of a girl who had never looked upon the realities of life. -Yes, she could easily be ugly again; but with ugliness would not come -two years’ annihilation. - -She threw herself into a chair, and, covering her eyes with her hand, -cried a little. To the hopes, the ambitions, the dreams, the longings, -which had been her faithful companions throughout her life, she owed -those tears. She would shed none for her mistakes. She dropped her hand -and let her head fall back with a little sigh of content. At least there -was one solution for all misery, and nothing could take it from her. -Death was so easy to find; it dwelt in a little bottle in the next room. -In an hour she would be beyond the reach of memories. What mattered this -little hour of pain? There was an eternity of forgetfulness beyond. -Another hour, and she would be like a bubble that had burst on the -surface of a lake. Then an ugly thought flashed into her brain, and she -pressed her hands against her eyes. Suppose there were a spiritual -existence and she should meet Cryder in it! Suppose he were waiting for -her at the threshold, and with malignant glee should link her to him for -all eternity! His egoism would demand just such revenge for her failure -to love him! - -She sprang to her feet. With difficulty she kept from screaming aloud. -Was she mad? - -Then the fear left her eyes and her face relaxed. If the soul were -immortal, and if each soul had its mate, hers was Quintard, and Cryder -could not claim her. She felt a sudden fierce desire to meet Cryder -again and pour out upon him the scorn and hatred which for the moment -forced love from her heart. - -She dropped her hands to her sides and gazed at the floor for a while, -forgetting Cryder. Then she walked toward her bedroom. As she reached -the pillars she stopped and pressed her handkerchief to her mouth with a -shudder of distaste. Cyanide of potassium was bitter, she had heard. She -had always hated bitter things—quinine and camphor and barks; her -mother used to give her a horrible tea when she was a child. * * * The -taste seemed to come into her mouth and warp it. * * * - -She flung her handkerchief to the floor with an impatient gesture and -went into the next room. - -A moment later she raised her head and listened. Then she drew a long, -shuddering breath. Some one was springing up the stairs. - -She thrust her hands into her hair and ruffled it about her face; it was -half dry, and the gold glinted through the damp. - -Quintard threw open the door of the boudoir and was at her side in an -instant. His face was white and his lips were blue, but the fierceness -was gone from his eyes. - -“You were going to kill yourself,” he said. - -“Yes,” she replied, “I shall kill myself.” - -“I knew it! Sit down and listen to me.” - -He pushed her on to a divan and sat in front of her. - -“I find by my watch that it is but an hour since I left you,” he went -on. “I had thought the world had rolled out of its teens. For most of -that hour I was mad. Then came back that terrible hunger of heart and -soul, a moment of awful, prophetic solitude. Let your past go. I cannot -live without you.” - -Hermia bent her body until her forehead touched her knees. “I cannot,” -she said; “I never could forget, nor could you.” - -“I _would_ forget, and so will you. I will make you forget.” - -She shook her head. “Life—nothing would ever be the same to me; nor to -you—now that I have told you.” - -He hesitated a moment. “You did right to tell me,” he said, “for your -soul’s peace. And I—I love you the better for what you have suffered. -And, my God! think of life without you! Let it go; we will make our past -out of our future.” - -He sat down beside her and took her in his arms, then drew her across -his lap and laid her head against his shoulder. - -“We are the creatures of opportunity, of circumstance,” he said; “we -must bow to the Doctrine of the Inevitable. Inexorable circumstance -waited too long to rivet our links; that is all. Circumstance is rarely -kind save to the commonplace, for it is only the commonplace who never -make mistakes. But no circumstance shall stand between us now. I love -you, and you are mine.” - -He drew her arms about his neck and kissed her softly on her eyes, her -face, her mouth. - -“You have suffered,” he whispered, “but let it be over and forgotten. -Poor girl! how fate all your life has stranded you in the desert, and -how you have beaten your wings against the ground and fought to get out. -Come to me and forget—forget—” - -She tightened her arm about his neck and pressed his face against her -shoulder. Then she took the cork from the phial hidden in her sleeve. -With a sudden instinct Quintard threw back his head, and the movement -knocked the phial from her hand. It fell to the floor and broke. - -For a moment he looked at her without speaking. Under the reproach in -his eyes her lids fell. - -He spoke at last. “Have you not thought of me once, Hermia? Are you so -utterly absorbed in yourself, in your desire to bury your misery in -oblivion, that you have not a thought left for my suffering, for my -loneliness, and for my remorse? Do you suppose I could ever forget that -you killed yourself for me? You are afraid to live; you can find no -courage to carry through life the gnawing at your soul. You have -pictured every horror of such an existence. And yet, by your own act, -you willingly abandon one whom you profess to love, to a life full of -the torments which you so terribly and elaborately comprehend.” - -Hermia lay still a moment, then slipped from his arms and rose to her -feet. For a few moments she walked slowly up and down the room, then -stood before him. The mask of her face was the same, but through it a -new spirit shone. It was the supreme moment of Hermia’s life. She might -not again touch the depths of her old selfishness, but as surely would -she never a second time brush her wings against the peaks of self’s -emancipation. - -“You are right,” she said; “I had not thought of you. I have sulked in -the lap of my own egoism all my life. That a human soul might get -outside of itself has never occurred to me—until now. I will live and -rejoice in my own abnegation, for the sacrifice will give me something -the better to offer you. I have suffered, and I shall suffer as long as -I live—but I believe you will be the happier for it.” - -He stood up and grasped her hands. “Hermia!” he exclaimed beneath his -breath, “Hermia, promise it! Promise me that you will live, that you -will never kill yourself. There might be wild moments of -remorse—promise.” - -“I promise,” she said. - -“Ah! you are true to yourself at last.” Suddenly he shook from head to -foot, and leaned heavily against her. - -She put her arms about him. “What is the matter?” she asked through -white lips. - -“There is a trouble of the heart,” he murmured unsteadily, “it is not -dangerous. The tension has been very strong -to-night—but—to-morrow”—and then he fell to the floor. - -She was beside him still when Miss Starbruck entered the room. The old -lady’s eyes were angry and defiant, and her mouth was set in a hard -line. For the first time in her life she was not afraid of Hermia. - -“I heard his voice some time ago,” she said, hoarsely, “and at first I -did not dare face you and come in. But you are my dead sister’s child, -and I will do my duty by you. You shall not disgrace your mother’s -blood—why is he lying there like that?” - -Hermia rose and confronted her, and involuntarily Miss Starbruck lowered -her eyes. - -“He is dead,” said Hermia, “and I——have promised to live.” - - - THE END. - - * * * * * - -=Transcriber’s Notes:= - -Spellings and hyphenation have been retained as in the original. -Punctuation has been corrected without note. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Hermia Suydam, by Gertrude Atherton - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HERMIA SUYDAM *** - -***** This file should be named 50169-0.txt or 50169-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/0/1/6/50169/ - -Produced by Mardi Desjardins & the online Distributed -Proofreaders Canada team (http://www.pgdpcanada.net) from -page images generously made available by The Internet -Archive American Libraries -(https://archive.org/details/americana) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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